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THE SUPERANNUATE: 



ANECDOTES, INCIDENTS, AND SKETCHES 

OF THS 

LIFE AND EXPERIENCE 

OF 

WILLIAM RYDER, 

A " worn-out " Preacher of the Tro.v C oniereiic^ of the M. E. Church. 



RELATED BY HIMSELF. 



GEORGE PECK, EDITOR. 



NEW-YORK: 
PUBLISHED BY G. LANE & C. B. TIPPETT, 
FOR THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 200 MULBERRY-STREET. 

J. Colloid, Printer. 
1845, 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845, by 
G. Lane & C. B. Tippett, in the Clerk's Office of the District 
Coxurt of the Southern District of New-York. 

SOURCE UNKNOWN 



AUG 2 1940 



PREFACE. 



William Ryder is an invalid ; the helpless 
victim of incurable rheumatic and neuralgic af- 
fections, that have long since destroyed the 
flexibility of his joints, distorted his limbs, im- 
parted an unnatural rigidity and tension to his 
principal muscles, and destroyed for ever all 
power of locomotion. The senses, superior 
and inferior, if we except feeling, which is at 
all times morbidly acute, remain unimpaired ; 
and speech, a powerful alleviator of human suf- 
fering, has survived the general wreck of the 
physical faculties. Reduced thus to a state of 
incessant dependence, and doomed, in the prime 
of life, to sustain that relation to his fellow-men 
from which every age recoils with instinctive 
repugnance, the idea of self-aid^ which never 



4 PREFACE. 

abandons the most helpless, has prompted him 
to summon his available powers — a retentive 
memory and a tolerable tact at narration and 
description — to the assistance of his temporal 
circumstances. 

The following sketches, recorded, so far as 
fact is concerned, from our invalid's own lips, 
are offered to the public, first, because it is be- 
lieved they are not entirely destitute of intrinsic 
value, and, secondly, with the design, originally 
contemplated, of rendering pecuniary aid, in the 
least objectionable form, to a sufTering brother 
in Christ. 

Troy Conference Academy^ 1844. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Introduction — Birth — Lineage — Parentage — Incidents 
of childhood — An immersion — A slight mistake — Juvenile 
valor — Incidents of youth — A nocturnal *' foray " and its conse- 
quences — Game upon gamesters — Early education Page 7 

CHAPTER II. 

Lumbering — An expedition — Anti- Washington! ans — In- 
temperance — Twinges of conscience — A resolution — Sacri- 
lege — A hunt — Lost in the woods — Wanderings — Rural lodg- 
ings — Savage entertainers — The dinner — Fortunate encoun- 
ter — Needless reproaches 22 

CHAPTER in. 

Resolutions — Bitter reflections — Sabbath employments — 
Mental agony — Conversion — Unites with the M. E. Church 
—Baptism — An incident — The willow — Call to preach — 
Daniel Brayton — Verbal license — Labors as an exhorter — 
Sanctification — Camp-meeting — George Coles — Sherman 
Minor — George Brown — Cyrus Prindle . . . .35 

CHAPTER IV. 

Educational deficiencies — Studies — Authors perused — 
Characteristics — Firelight reading — Study and labor united 
— Beebe's Academy — Common-place book — Philip Spaun — 
His character — Person — Death — Apostrophe — Conference 
studies — Reading on horseback — Education in Methodist 
Episcopal Church 49 

CHAPTER V. 

Itinerancy — Warren circuit — Seymour Coleman — Pastoral 
visits — A singular reception — Return home — Whitehall cir- 
cuit — Appointments — An attentive audience — Revolutionary 
anecdote — A voyage — Playing the gentleman — Pretensions 
to gentility beginning and ending in smoke — Destitution — 
Humiliating alternative — Preaching and its application — A 
death-bed — Revivals 60 

CHAPTER VI. 

Trials in relation to preaching — Cambridge circuit— Rev. 
R. Kelley — Ashgrove — Reminiscences — Venerable names — 



6 



CONTENTS. 



Persecution — Perilous ride — Arlington mountain — A capsize 
— Cold bath — Camp-meeting — Rev. J. B. Stratten — Despond- 
ency — Seasonable encouragement . . . .74 

CHAPTER VIL 

A niral j)arsonage — Wallingford circuit — ^First essay at 
domestic life — Reflections — Natural scenery — Social com.- 
forts — Religious j)rosperity — Reflections — Cold River — A de- 
feat — A singular circumstance — Important results — Adven- 
ture on Mount Holly — A lucJicrous incident — ^A laughable re- 
miniscence — Joshua Poor — Shocking occurrence — A word 
fitly spoken — First attack of disease . . , .90 

CHAPTER VlIK 

Reflections — Joy in suff'ering — Paul — Wilbur Fisk — Lei- 
cester circuit — Appointments — Labors — Anecdote — The 
swearer — An inquiry and an answer " ad libitum" — A death- 
bed — Fording Otter Creek — The Oliii family — Second attack 
of disease — ^Its progress . 107 

CHAPTER IX. 

Troy Conference— Its first session — Mr. Ryder attends — 
His physical distress — Impressions and reflections — His or- 
dination — Appointment — Labors in Salisl>ury station — A 
funeral sermon — A wedding at a funeral — End of labors as a 
preacher — Reflections — Anecdotes— Progress of disease 120 

CHAPTER X. 

Mental distress — Granville camp -meeting — Pawlet Confer- 
ence—Meeting with preachers— Consolation — Bishop Waugh 
— Return home — Employments — College commencement — 
His last sermon — Increase of disease — Hydrostatic bed — 
Easy chair — Fourth of July — ^Whitehall camp-meeting 133 

CHAPTER XI. 

The impotency of medical skill in Mr. Ryder's case — 
Causes of his disease — Its character . . . .143 

CHAPTER XII. 

Reflections upon the insufficiency of philosophy and natu- 
ral firmness under great afflictions— Mr. Ryder's example, its 
influence upon others — Benevolent contributions to his aid — 
Mitigations of suffering 149 



LIFE AND EXPERIENCE 

OF 

WILLIAM RYDER. 



CHAPTER 1. 

O breathing picture of childhood bright, 
With its blossoming visions of pure delight, 
A dream of the past in this scene I see, 
A landscape that beameth no more for me. 

Willis Gaylord Clarke. 

Johnson has somewhere remarked, that pro- 
bably no individual has lived of whom a judi- 
cious biography would not be of service to man- 
kind. Allowing the correctness of the position 
of the great philosopher, and admitting that 
something valuable may be expected from the 
true exhibition of the course and character of 
every man, however humble his station or ordi- 
nary his talents, certain it is, that few biogra- 
phers unite the requisite impartiality in the se- 
lection, and skill in the arrangement, of mate- 
rials, with the judgment needful for determining 
what is really fitted to edify or amuse. The 



8 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



outlines of character, like the lineaments of the 
face, are everywhere so essentially the same, 
that it requires a practiced eye, a true hand, and 
a soul deeply imbued mth the beau-ideal of art, 
to invest them \^dth an attractive variety. There 
are features so striking and characters so marked 
that he who should fail of a coiTect portraitm'e 
of either would ill deserve the name of artist : 
yet Reynolds or Guido could impart an air of 
princely nobleness to a countenance of ordinary 
cast ; and the humblest likenesses of the great 
biographer of the poets are so delineated that, 
though the original wants expression, in the 
execution at least we discern the hand of a 
master. The following reminiscences by no 
means aspire to rank with regular biography ; 
their author is little accustomed to the pencil 
and easel, and their subject has nothing to dis- 
tinguish him from the mass : he prefers no 
claims to distinction in the religious or literar}' 
world : he has never trodden the political are- 
na, nor can he boast of 

" Moving accidents by flood and field." 

Yet will it be some alleviation to his incessant 
sufferings, some compensation for his having 
been cut off from active usefulness in the spring- 
tide of life, if this simple relation of his brief 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



9 



experience may rescue his name from oblivion, 
with those to whom it was once familiar ; if it 
may become to his fathers and brethren in the 
ministry a trifling memento of one who revered 
their virtues and strove to emulate their useful- 
ness ; if it may be a channel for the expression 
of gratitude for that broad benevolence of which 
he has been for several years the object ; and, 
finally, if it may in any of its parts be the in- 
strument of ministering to individual happiness, 
promoting the divine gloiy, and advancing the 
reign of universal love. 

William Ryder was born in Holliston, Mid- 
dlesex county, Massachusetts, June 27th, 1805. 
Tradition traces his lineal descent from the 
younger of three brothers, by the name of Ry- 
dorr, emigrants to the Bay State Commonwealth 
in the earlier days of its colonial existence. 
The eldest died soon after their arrival ; the 
second married and removed to the south-west ; 
the third became a permanent and prosperous resi- 
dent of the rising colony, and died at a great age, 
leaving an only son, who, like his predecessor and 
the patriarchs of New-England generally, exceed- 
ed by many years the ordinary allotment of life. 
His sole male heir, the grandsire of William, 
also lived to an advanced age, and accumulated 
a considerable estate, the whole of which he 



10 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



bequeathed to a favorite grandson, leaving to 
the remainder of his somewhat numerous pro- 
geny, good constitutions, good habits, and a beg- 
garly account of empt}- pm*ses. James, the 
eldest of his two sons, deserves something more 
than a passing notice. He was a man of ath- 
letic frame, temperate, frugal, and industrious, 
prompt m all his engagements, never rich, yet 
always a good liver. He was a rolling stone. 
Judging from his tendency to locomotion, the 
organ of inhabitiveness, proverbially deficient 
in American heads, must have ranked unusually 
low among his phrenological developments. 
His mental faculties, natm*ally vigorous, were 
well trained by early education ; his mathemati- 
cal and mechanical parts were rather brilliant, 
and his sound judgment and practical sense 
commanded respect. Having embraced reli- 
gion in the meridian of life, he ever after main- 
tained a deportment consistent with his profes- 
sion, and was for years intrusted ^^dth the re- 
sponsible offices of leader and steward in the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he was 
a devoted member, until, at the age of forty-six, 
he was called to his reward. His widow, a 
pious, industrious, and frugal representative of 
the matrons of the old school, is still living, and 
resides in western New- York. Such were the 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



11 



individuals to whom William Ryder held the 
filial relation, and upon whom, for the first 
twelve years of his life, he was dependent for 
support and scanty facilities for education. In 
his childhood they removed to New-Salem, and 
thence to Fort Ann, Washington county, New- 
York. 

Of his native state Mr. Ryder is permitted to 
cherish few recollections. One or two inci- 
dents of childhood he relates, which are per- 
haps worthy of record, as illustrative of the pe- 
culiar bent of his opening powers. Like other 
boys, he betrayed an early and excessive fond- 
ness for the water, and when unobserved would 
sit for hours on a low rock that projected into 
the stream above his father's mill-dam, with his 
little feet dangling in water of which the per- 
pendicular depth was at least fifteen feet. To 
cure this dangerous propensity, his father one 
day sm'prised him in one of his aquatic exciu:- 
sions upon the banks of Miller's River, thi-ew 
him into the middle of the stream, and, after re- 
peated immersions, held him up, dripping and 
drowning, to see if the remedy were taking effect. 
Judge of his vexation when the little fellow, de- 
lighted with the process, gurgled out as well as 
he was able, "Do so again, papa !" 

Passionately fond of a whip. William once 



12 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



appropriated the ox-goad of a neighbor, for 
which humble imitation of the patron and model 
of youthful pilferers he received a severe fla- 
gellation. This common juvenile attachment 
gave rise to a whimsical incident. A long lash, 
braided by his father from the tanned hide of a 
woodchuck, aroused his inquisitiveness, and he 
watched with childish eagerness the evolutions 
and undulations of the braid, during the usual 
process of rolling it with the foot to give it firm- 
ness and shape. " What is it?" he very natu- 
rally inquired. " A woodchuck," replied his 
father, carelessly. Soon after, while conveying 
refreshments to the workm.en in the field, he 
came suddenly upon a noble prototype of the 
coveted whiplash in the form of a huge black- 
snake, lying across the path, and which, thus 
wantonly disturbed in his noonday reveries, 
made for the wall with all convenient speed. 
William, nothing loth, set down his basket and 
gave chase. Seizing the reptile as he was en- 
tering the wall by the troublesome appendage 
not yet ensconced, he braced his little feet, and 
pulling with all his strength, exultingly vocife- 
rated, " O, papa ! I've caught a woodchuck ! 
I've caught a woodchuck !" 

At Fort Ann Falls, to which place William 
removed with his parents when about six years 



THE SUPERANNUATE, 



13 



of age, every new comer was obliged to fight 
Ms way into the juvenile society, and at once to 
settle his rank as bully or coward by an exhibi- 
tion of personal prowess. One or two unpro- 
voked demonstrations of this species of chivalry 
upon the person of William first excited his sur- 
prise, and then indigTiation and desire for re- 
venge, for which an opportunity speedily offered. 
Having discovered six of the little knights of 
the fist engaged in fishing below the falls, he 
selected a defensive position upon the summit 
of the overhanging rock, and exhibiting himself 
full of fight, dared them, one and all, to the at- 
tack. When his little adversaries were fairly 
within the narrow and steep pass that led to his 
mimic Gibraltar, he saluted them with such well- 
directed missives, and well-aimed blows, as put 
them all to flight, excepting one, much his supe- 
rior in age and strength, who persevered to the 
top of the defile, when our little combatant gave 
him such a stroke with a cudgel as caused him 
to cry out, and sent him reeling after his flying 
companions. This victory cost him dear, since, 
like one of Marryatt's midshipmen, he was 
obliged to fight the battles of half the boys in 
the parish to sustain his reputation. Simple as 
was the incident, it was not without its bearing 
upon the development of the boy's mind. 



14 



THE SUPER AXXU ATE. 



It is to childhood and its manifestations that 
we are to look for the germs of character : for 
the child," says the old adage, is the father 
of the man." Love of revenge was aroused, 
and deliberation in demising, and coolness in 
executing, plans for the gratification of this de- 
structive passion became from that moment cha- 
racteristics of young Ryder, which were lost or 
modified only by submission to the great prin- 
ciple of the diraie nonresistant command, " If 
a man smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to 
him the other also." 

At the age of twelve years "William was ap- 
prenticed to a farmer in Kingsbury, New- York, 
whom he served, with but little variation from 
the ordinaiy routine of a fanning life, mitil he 
attained his majority. Constant manual labor, 
hunting during his hom's of leism'e, lumbering 
and boating upon the Hudson, were exercises 
calculated to develop his physical strength, to 
cultivate a fondness for daring, and to prompt 
him to engage in that species of enterprise in 
which the love of adventure conceals from 
youthful eyes the moral deformity of the deed. 
Of this character was a nocturnal expedition, 
planned by him and three of his associates, the 
fall after he was fifteen, for the villanous pur- 
pose of purloining watennelons. Dispute as to 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



15 



the particular course to be pursued resulted in 
a dissolution of partnership, and William dog- 
gedly proceeded alone toward his favorite de- 
signation. After crossing several fields, he 
came to a pine wood that lay in his route, 
against the dark body of which he beheld, in- 
distinctly, a form, whose deliberate motions 
were accompanied by an unearthly clanking of 
chains. Startled by this sudden apparition, he 
was about to make a precipitate retreat, but the 
politician's " sober second thought" revived his 
failing courage ; he cautiously advanced, and 
found the object of his terror to be a shackled 
horse, upon which bestowing a few kicks, and 
upon himself a few imprecations for his cow- 
ardliness, he proceeded without further inter- 
ruption to the watermelon patch. He had al- 
ready secured a fine booty, when the barking 
of a watchdog gave him the warning to be off, 
and the master the signal for pursuit. Drop- 
ping his melons, he ran in the direction of a 
small pond, into which he plunged, expecting 
that the dog would foUov/ him, Avhen he antici- 
pated putting a mortal termination to his ill- 
timed clamor. The sagacious animal, however, 
ran round the pond, and stood baying him, when, 
with all expedition, he had swum to the op- 
posite shore. A well-directed blow from a 



16 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



cudgel, as soon as he was upon terra-firma, 
freed him from this annoyance ; but a more for- 
midable danger was at hand, for Ben Birch, a 
powerful man, was already at his heels, and 
when William, fleet of foot, but encumbered 
with wet garments, plunged into a brush fence 
at the other side of the field. Birch tumbled 
directly upon him. Wresting himself from the 
muscular grasp of his pursuer, the marauder 
cleared the fence at a bound, his determined 
adversary followed suit, and the chase was so 
hotly renewed that, as the fugitive scaled the 
next wall and fell to the ground on the opposite 
side, the other was upon him with his crushing 
weight, and embracing him fiiTnly in his giant 
limbs. Partially freeing himself, and feeling 
that sometliing decisive must be done, the youth- 
ful aggTessor seized a stone, and with a savage 
blow felled his assailant to the earth. Stunned 
for a moment, but by no means to be so thwart- 
ed. Birch roused almost instantly, and a third 
time gave vigilant pursuit. Having gained the 
highway, in flying down a steep hill, where the 
road wound rapidly to the right, with Birch 
close at his heels, William suddenly dropped 
upon his haunches ; his abused pursuer stumbled 
over him, and his great momentum carried him 
a full rod down the steep bank at his left, and 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



17 



lodged him in one of the clumps of briers with 
which the road was thickly skirted. Leaving 
him to extricate himself at his leisure, the heed- 
less youth made the best of his way homeward, 
deeming himself fortunate in having escaped 
the punishment he so richly deserved at the 
hands of the injured party or of violated law. 
In a state where an action for a paltry sum sub- 
jects one to the liability of a " trip to Windsor,"* 
it is needless to suggest to youth the foolhardi- 
ness of tempting such a disastrous consumma- 
tion of hairbrained exploit for the temporary 
gratification of an idle love of adventure. 
Stripped of the empty boast of questionable 
heroism, such acts must ever excite disgust and 
reprehension, as being equally at variance with 
reciprocity and the laws of God. 

For gaming of all sorts William had a kind 
of instinctive abhorrence, though well versed 
for one of his age and opportunities in the mys- 
teries of the card table : nor had he been at any 
pains to conceal from his comrades his decided 
aversion for a practice to which they were ex- 
cessively addicted. On one sabbath in particu- 
lar, he had, by force or entreaty, broken up two 
sets of youthful gamesters, whom he had ferret- 
ed to their secret retreats while he was hunting 

^ The seat of the Vermont state prison. 
2 



18 



THE SLTPER ANNUA TE. 



in the woods ; nor had they, so limited was 
their knowledge, or so loose their appreciation 
of moral responsibility, retorted upon him, 
" Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit 
sacrilege?''' Shortly after, he and five of his 
comrades spent the first half of a warm, dark 
spring night in scooping fish from a neighbor- 
ing brook. The sport ended, the spoils divided, 
and the homeward journey commenced, four of 
the company invented a flimsy pretext to rid 
themselves of the presence of William and one 
Morrison, a lad of scrupulous honesty, who, 
suspecting the object of their more sophisticated 
comrades, quietly withdrew to a little distance, 
and under the cover of darkness attentively 
listened to their movements. Recrossing the 
stream, they proceeded up the opposite bank to 
an old house, lone and untenanted, entering 
which, they struck a light, whose first glimmer, 
straggling feebly through the misty air, at once 
revealed their intentions. Now," said Wil- 
liam, "the ' old fellow,' 

' Whose children in darkness take most delight, 
Who walks in the morning and rides at night,' 

shall appear to those worshipers of fortune 
and forthwith providing themselves with a pole, 
to one end of which was attached a huge bunch 



THE SUPER AXXUATE. 



19 



of coarse tow and a haiidfiil of brimstone matches, 
they proceeded to reconnoiter the rendezvous 
of the gamblers. The latter had made fast the 
outer doors, retreated to a small square pantiy 
adjoining the kitchen, made seats and a table 
of part of the rickety shelves of the closet, and 
thus conveniently disposed, and fancying them- 
selves seciue from discovery or interruption, 
were deeply involved m the labyrinths of card- 
table deception, or had surrendered themselves 
to the fascinations of attractive chance. Enter- 
ing at a remote window, AVilliam cautiously felt 
his way to the kitchen, upon the hearth of which 
a half-consumed torch of pitchpine blazed ilick- 
eringly, partially relieving the apartment of its 
gloom. Setting wide open the outer door, in 
front of which lay a broad meadow, terminated 
at the distance of forty rods by a dismal swamp, 
the conspirators made ready torch, tow, and 
brimstone with silence and dispatch, and breath- 
lessly awaited a favorable moment to carry their 
well-laid scheme into execution. Totally un- 
conscious of the presence of enemies to their 
unhallowed occupation, the devotees of the 
fickle goddess were bendmg eagerly over the 
rude table, and examining by the blue glare of 
a single dull wdck the residts of the first game. 
A beam of pleasure flashed from the keen eye 



20 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



of one of the number as he leaned backward 
against the loosely-latched door, and deliberate- 
ly exclaimed, " I have the high, low, jack, and 
game !" ^' Indeed, you have not !" said his ad- 
versary, in a tone of drawling uncertainty, as he 
examined, card by card, the luck of his own 
hand. The other was rejoining, " I'll go to the 

d 1, if" — when a fiendish yell saluted their 

ears : the door was burst in with unearthly vio- 
lence ; the invoker of the evil one was dashed 
across the table ; the light was extinguished, 
and the loosened shelves lumbered to the floor 
with a horrible crash ! Terrified by the sud- 
denness of the apparation, involved in pitchy 
darkness, and confounded by the frightful din 
and hideous screams, the card players gathered 
themselves up with an expedition to which fear 
lent efficient aid, and rushed from the haunted 
domicil. At the door a cloud of brimstone 
fumes saluted their olfactories, and they stood 
petrified and speechless with horror, amounting 
almost to agony, as they gazed after the night- 
shrieking representative of him whose presence 
they had challenged, enveloped in flames, and 
escaping from the premises in the direction of 
the swamp, while the adjacent hills and woods 
paid back his infernal bowlings with appalling 
energy ! As he plunged down the morass there 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



21 



was one long demoniacal shriek — the flames 
blazed fiercely upward, deluging the night air 
with a shower of red scintillations, and the next 
^ instant all was silence and Eg}^tian gloom. 
The effect upon the affrighted gamblers is 
readily imagined. 

Young Ryder's opportunities for early educa- 
tion were of the most limited character. A 
smattering of the common English branches 
constituted his whole stock of scientific ac- 
quirement. In liis indentures provision was 
made by liis father for barely nine months* 
schooling in nine years ! Living at a distance 
from the " noisy mansion," and busied for seve- 
ral hours of each short Avinter day with the in- 
cidental labors of a large farming establishment, 
it will be easily conjectured that his tastes for 
learning were slow in developing ; nor was it 
until after religion had begun to exercise its 
genial influences upon his heart, that he seri- 
ously turned his attention to the improvement 
of his intellectual powers. 



22 



THE SUPERANNUATE, 



CHAPTER II. 

Let others praise the mby bright, 
In the red wine's sparkHng glow; 

Dearer to me is the diamond light 
Of the fountain's clearer flow. 

CHORUS. 

Then give me the cup of cold water, &c. 

Bethunb. 

He led the boy o'er bank and fell, 

Until they came to a woodland brook, 
The iTmning sti'eam dissolved the speU, 
And his own ehdsh shape he took — 
So he but scowl'd on the stai'tled child, 
And daited through the forest wild, 
The i-unning brook he bounding cross'd, 
And laugh'd and shouted, Lost! lost! lost! 

Lay of the Last Minstrel. 

Salutary effects often flow from singular 
causes ; and it is mainly to the influence of three 
prominent events of his youthful career that 
Mr. Ryder is accustomed to attribute a great 
and propitious change in his moral and mental 
habits. The beginning of the year 1824 found 
him engaged in lumbering in the extensive belt 
of forest that stretches from Queensbury on the 
south to Ticonderoga on the north, from the 
southern arm of the Champlain on the east to 
the waters of Lake George on the west, and in 



THE SUPER AXNaTATE, 



23 



the immediate %icinit}° of the South Bay Moun- 
tains. From this then unbroken ^\alderness^ a lum- 
ber company, of which William's master was 
one, had contracted to deliver a large quantity- of 
hemlock, the felling and dressing of which had 
been the winter's occupation for a large num- 
ber of hands. As the season advanced, and 
the work approached its consmnmation, the pro- 
prietors farmed out the remainder of the job and 
withdrew to their respective homes, leading a 
company of four, under the direction of one 
Sherman, to complete it. It was the fortune of 
young Ryder to remain. His associates were 
not at all tinctured with Puritanical notions, and 
intemperance, profanity, and violation of the 
sabbath were practices common enough, and 
by no means seriously at variance with the 
border code of practical ethics. Reuben War- 
ner was an old sailor, and possessed, with all 
the roughness peculiar to his profession, a be- 
nevolence as expansive as the oceans he had 
traversed. David Di"^-ine was a soldier of the 
wars of 1812, and inherited a fuU. share of the 
virtues and vices of the camp. Stephen Jen- 
kins was a hard drinker by profession, and, con- 
sidering how much may be accomplished by 
diligent practice during a novitiate of twenty 
years, it will be no matter of wonder if he had 



24 



THE SUPERANNUATE, 



become an adept in his vocation. This hope- 
ful company, about the 1st of February, plan- 
ned a sabbath excursion to Whitehall, a beauti 
ful village situated at the head of Lake Cham- 
plain, and seven or nine miles from their en- 
campment in the heart of the Pike Brook Woods. 
Commencing their journey with the dawn, they 
passed directly over Saddle Mountain, and at 
an early hour were perambulating the streets 
of the village. All day long they strolled, 
freely partaking the various liquors everywhere 
exhibited in glittering row upon the shelves o^f 
the taverns and shops — -though not without some 
twinges of conscience on the part of William, and 
some remonstrances and solicitations to retreat, 
while retreat wa^ in their pov/er, all of which 
were lost upon his hardened associates. At 
nine o'clock at night commenced their home- 
ward journey, every step of which naturally 
and beautifully illustrated " the drunkard's pro- 
gress," The streets seemed as narrow as the 
passage to the ancient Euxine through the 
treacherous Symplegades : the world whirled 
more rapidly upon its axis : the axis itself had 
a most incontinent bent of changing its direc- 
tion, and the ground exhibited, a fantastic ten- 
dency to fly in their faces. Outstaggered by 
his companions, whom long practice had ac- 



THE SUPERANx^UATE. 



25 



complislied in the art of threading the whirling 
mazes of the inebriate's path, William felt a 
strange heaviness and disposition to slumber. 
Proceed he could not ; the drunkard's bed was 
at hand, and he fell heavily upon it ; the yield- 
ing snow seemed down to his weary limbs ; its 
coolness was refreshing to his burning temples ; 
his brain ceased to reel, and conjured up de- 
lightful fantasies ; and for a short half hour, 

He seem'd in Eden while he dream'd." 

Fatal and perhaps final would have been that 
repose, had not his comrades, whom intoxica- 
tion had not deprived of vision or of compassion 
for their young friend's inexperience, become 
alarmed at his absence, come to a halt, and de- 
termined to retrace their steps. To men in 
such plight every advance step is clear gain, 
and to restagger two precious miles of their 
homeward career was no slight sacrifice ; but 
with the benevolent Warner there was no other 
alternative. It is not in a sailor's heart," said 
he, " to leave a shipmate upon^ the breakers 
" Never will a soldier yield to a sailor in good 
offices to a messmate !" rejoined David Divine ; 
and the unfortunate William., flanked right and 
left by these honest sons of Neptune and Mars, 
was soon, thanks to his refreshing slumber, the 



26 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



Steadiest of the trio. With a firmer step he 
recrossed the bay ; and here nature, with her 
usual kindness to the suffering, came to his re- 
lief. His nauseating stomach imperatively re- 
jected the foul mixtures with w^hich it had been 
flooded, and the crisis was passed. The re- 
mainder of the journey was comfortably accom- 
plished ; conscience was silent ; the current of 
his thoughts flowed as freely as the frosty air 
he inhaled, and by the " noon of night," faint 
with fasting, fatigue, and excess, he sought his 
couch and welcome repose. Like Waverley, 
after his maiden carousel, William " slept 
soundly until late in the succeeding morning, 
and then awoke to a painfid recollection of the 
scenes of the preceding evening." Bitter but 
unavailing were his regrets ; bitter was his 
sense of self-degradation ; bitter was his re- 
pentance, and salutary were its eflects. Two 
years before he had heard even the name of a 
temperance society the solemn vow had passed 
his lips, that he would no more partake ardent 
spirits, except as a medicine. Through the 
grace of God the oath has been faithfully kept, 
and young Ryder's first and last essay at intem- 
perate drinking became one of the circum- 
stances that aroused reflection and rescued 
him from the characteristic volatility of youth. 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



27 



The exuberant spirits of the young cannot 
long endure the restraints of painful thought ; 
the mind reacts by its own elasticity, and as- 
sumes its native tone of gayety and animation. 
Where the disquieting feeling is permanent, 
concealment is a ready resort, for there is no- 
thing upon which youth are so averse to being 
rallied as upon any unusual seriousness of de- 
meanor. It will not therefore be deemed sur- 
prising that William should have exhibited an 
extravagant and even unnatural degree of hilarity 
after his recent adventure, and that a wicked 
levity should have induced an act that wrung 
sorrow from his heart and scalding tears from 
his eyes. This was no other than a sacrilegious 
imitation of the administration of the sacrament 
to his companions m wickedness ! For this 
rash deed an educated conscience lashed his 
already lacerated feelings till they bled afresh. 

Two weeks from the period of these occur- 
rences, a severe snow-storm drove the lumber- 
ers, at mid-day, from the wood to the shelter 
of their rude cabin, and William obtained leave 
from Sherman, his temporary guardian, to spend 
the remainder of the day in hunting. Proceed- 
ing a mile or two up the " State Road," the only 
avenue, and that almost unfrequented, through 
these otherwise unpenetrated wilds, he struck 



28 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



directly into the woods, and soon started a deer 
from his covert, to which, in despite of the law 
which forbade their destruction at that season 
of the year, he gave brisk chase. For several 
hours he pursued the coveted game, which 
stretched away westward with rapid bounds. 
Whenever the fresh tracks indicated that the 
buck had bounded rapidly forward, the youth- 
ful hunter quickened his pace to a run, and 
when the footprints showed a leisurely move- 
ment on the part of the chase, he advanced 
with the utmost circumspection, lest the stir- 
ring of a leaf or the crackling of a branch 
should arouse the quick perception of the keen- 
sighted and cautious animal of which he was in 
pursuit. Night was drawing rapidly on, and 
its first shades had already begun to fall from 
the clouded heavens upon the dark forest when 
William relinquished his hopes, and with keen 
disappointment, such as the thwarted hunter 
alone knows, turned to retrace his footsteps, 
when, lo ! the deer, which had made a complete 
circuit in his perambulations, stood directly be- 
fore him, within rifle-shot, and presenting a fair 
broadside, without an intervening obstacle. 
One breathless instant sufficed to raise the rifle 
to the face, and the next sped two whizzing 
bullets through the heart of the noble animal, 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



29 



which gave one convulsive bound and fell 
quivering and lifeless upon the snow. Hasten- 
ing to strip the skin from the yet palpitating 
limbs, the successful hunter hung upon adjacent 
saplings three quarters of the carcass, out of 
the reach of carnivorous animals, and shoulder- 
ing the fourth, with the skin, as trophies of his 
fortune, set out in the direction, as he judged, 
of the State Road. Half an hour's rapid tra- 
veling brought darkness, and v/ith it the con- 
viction that he was not nearing the object of 
his search. The snow had nearly ceased to 
fall, the atmosphere was milder, and a thick fog 
was settling upon the wood. Gathering a pile 
of decayed branches to the base of a dead pine, 
he kindled a cheerful blaze, and found both 
business and amusement for the entire night in 
supplying it with fuel, and in roasting by it 
slices of the fresh venison. With the earliest 
ray of morning he again set forward in antici- 
pation of a speedy termination to his adventure. 
Yet, hour after hour he pursued his way over 
the snow, often impeded by the windfalls of 
former ages, and often turned out of his course 
by tangled underbrush of witch-hazel and im- 
penetrable copices of spruce. The sullen hea-t 
vens and branching evergreens obscured the 
sky, and blotted from observation the course of 



30 



THE SUPER ANXUATE. 



the sun. All day long lie traveled. Accus- 
tomed to tlie woods, he felt no anxiety- about his 
ultimate safety; though it must be confessed 
that his circumstances, not remarkably propi- 
tious, were rather ca.lcula,ted to excite misgiv- I 
ings in the bosom of a youth. Wandering i 
wearily along, he came at nightfall upon a little | 
brook, pursuing its serpentine coiurse between I 
two lofty and precipitous ridges, and followed J 
along its margin for half an hour without know- ; 
ing whether it led him in the right direction or j 
whether it was every moment guiding him fur- 
ther and further from his true course. Rising 
a little eminence, a prostrate pine obstructed his 
progress. Faint with fasting and weariness, 
he leaned mechanically against the huge trunk, | 
and glanced at the strange objects around him. l 
. On his left rose a ragged precipice, from whose I 
shelving sides moss-covered birches and maples i 
reared " against the wintiy^ sky" their thick and ! 
leafless tops. At his right was the deep ravine ' 
he had been traversing; and at its bottom the : 
little brook, rejoicing in its freedom from icy 
fetters, bounded along its forest-sheltered bed, 
and sent its dismal murmurings to his heart. 
Before him lay the interminable forest, — the 
dark, dense forest, where the gray trunks of 
ancient pines, weeping balsams, and hoary ! 



'i 
\ 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



31 



spruces stood like the sombre columns of a 
Gothic pile, and interwove their dark branches 
and darker foliage to shroud in gloom the vistas 
opened up by their retreating bases. To com- 
plete the desolateness of the scene, the wind 
sighed and roared through the thick tops of the 
evergreens, and crashed with fury against the 
howling sides and bald summit of the precipice, 
and two neighboring hemlocks, that had blown 
against each other, sent forth a mournful creak- 
ing, like the shiieks of the storm-spirit wailing 
the fate of a sinking bark. At this instant the 
hopelessness of his situation flashed upon the 
mind of the wanderer. His o^yn voice broke 
upon his ear, startling as that of the elfin page 
in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, and the dismal 
echo reverberated through all the chambers of 
his soul as he involuntarily exclaimed, ^* Lost ! 
lost ! lost !" His feelings can neither be ima- 
gined nor described. Night was again upon 
him, and again he prepared to bivouac under 
its sable shadow. One of the main branches 
of the giant pine against which he had leaned 
rested upon the ground : upon this the second 
was horizontally superposed ; while the third, 
springing from the upper side of the main trunk, 
and projecting in nearly the same direction with 
its fellows, served to suppoit the spreading top 



32 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



of another huge tree that had fallen transversely 
upon it ; and thus was constituted, with a little 
roofing, as complete a cabin as ever sheltered 
a houseless wanderer from wind and storm. A 
pile of leaves, gathered from beneath the base 
of the same friendly trunk, promised gentle re- 
pose to weary nature. Into this retreat, after 
preparing his rifle and securing his game, Wil- 
liam crept, imbedded himself in his truly primi- 
tive covering, and composed himself to rest, as 
well as the creaking hemlocks, the babbling 
brook, the howling storm, and his own agitated 
feelings would allow. Comparative quiet reigned 
until near midnight, when the howling of distant 
wolves, that had caused him some apprehension 
on the preceding night, renewed his painful 
anxiety. Nor were his fears at all alleviated 
when the increasing nearness and volume of 
the sound told that its savage authors were ap- 
proaching his rural lodging, either because it 
lay in their route, or more probably attracted 
by the scent of the tempting venison. On they 
came, and still on ; and when within the nar- 
row glen in which William had made his lair, 
their savage serenade awaked a thousand 
echoes, becoming louder and yet more loud, 
until it seemed that the wood was full of mon- 
sters, ravening for blood ! Awaiting their ap- 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



33 



proach, until he fancied lie could distinguish 
their 

Stealing, rustling steps," 

and hear them snuffing the night air as if the 
more certainly to scent out their victim, the 
young hunter crawled out of his covert, leveled 
his rifle and fired. The sudden blaze contrast- 
ed with the Tartarean gloom that mantled the 
forest was terrific ; while the report, answered 
back from a thousand points, seemed first like 
the crash of arms from a battalion, then died 
away in the distance like the sullen thunders 
of a departing cloud. A moment of palpitating 
suspense followed the rapid reloading of his 
piece. All was quiet. Panic-struck, the cow- 
ardly crew had fled in silence, leaving our ad- 
venturer in the undisturbed possession of his 
retreat. The breaking of a second day brought 
no relief to his watchful anxiety ; nor was it 
until the sun again hung in his meridian that a 
pitying Providence guided the forlorn wanderer 
to the object of his wishes, the long-sought 

! State Road ; and even then, so completely was 
his head turned by his wanderings, that he pur- 

I sued a course quite the opposite of that he 
should have taken. At length, spent with tra- 
vel and exhausted with long fasting, he came 
3 

li 



34 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



suddenly upon a recent clearing, in the centre 
of whicli stood that chosen residence of hospi- 
tality, a log house. In broad Scotch the mis- 
tress bade him welcome : she was touched with 
his story and his youth — for when did not wo- 
man sympathize with distress ? A generous 
steak of venison soon smoked upon the table, 
flanked by a dish of delicious potatoes, hot from 
the embers, and a lovely New-England " john- 
ny-cake," baked in that primitive style which 
modern inventions are fast teaching us to for- 
get. Upon these viands he fed voraciously, 
and leaving the remainder of his venison with 
his hospitable hostess, set out to retrace the 
eleven tedious miles that still intervened be- 
tween him and his temporary home. On his 
way thither he met one of his comrades on 
horseback. Alarmed at his long absence, they 
had dispatched one of their number in search 
of him, who had discovered the game, but no 
traces of William until their present agreeable 
encounter. Sherman addressed him harshly : 
but for severity there was no occasion ; he was 
already subdued ; he covered his face with his 
hands and wept like a child. His rude mess- 
mates ceased to jeer, and proffered their homely 
sympathies. He returned to Kingsbury at the 
conclusion of the job an altered being. He had 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



35 



left it a rude and volatile youth; he returned 
thoughtful, serious, and full of purposes of mo- 
ral reformation. 



CHAPTER III. 

Go, pour thyself 
In penitence to Him, who heeded not 
The cross on Calvary, so the lost might live. 

Mrs. L. H. Sigourney. 

Our vows are heard betimes, and Heaven takes care 
To grant, before we can conchide the prayer ! 
Preventing angels meet it half the way. 
And send us back to praise, who came to pray. 

Dryden. 

One rash essay at intemperance had deter- 
mined William to renounce for ever that de- 
grading vice. Profanity and sabbath-breaking, 
to both which he had been so excessively ad- 
dicted as to have secured from his ungodly com- 
rades the appellation " Wicked Will," v^ere now 
in turn proscribed. To adhere to these reso- 
lutions was no easy task. The familiar oath 
would sometimes involuntarily escape his lips, 
and he was often tempted, during the dull hours 
of the first sabbath of his self-imposed proba- 
tion, to seize his rifle and find refuge from him- 
self and painful thought in the fields and woods. 



36 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



So far were his limited internal resources from 
supplying the place of the illusive enjoyments 
derived from the courses of conduct he was now 
abandoning ; so distressing were the reflections 
flowing from a consciousness of violated self- 
respect ; and so formidable appeared the diffi- 
culties in the way of breaking up his old habits 
and associations, and adopting those which 
alone could give to his character the stamp of 
virtue and respectability, that the opening week 
found him literally vibrating between the desire 
to fulfil his purposes ana the strong temptation 
to abandon himself unresistingly to temporal 
min and spiritual death. A single remark, ut- 
tered by his unconscious mistress, was the 
grain that caused the scale to preponderate in 
favor of his better destinies. " William," said 
she, holding up an article of linen which bore 
indelible marks of his late inebriation, '-how 
came these tenible stains ? Water will never 
cleanse them out !" The iron in his soul was 
literally wenched ! " Stains !" thought he, " what 
are these to the stain on my reputation ! If the 
linen cannot be purged, what shall purify my 
soul from the moral pollution of the act that re- 
sulted in the defilement of the senseless tex- 
ture !" Extreme as was the anguish of his 
young heart, it was not as yet based upon the 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



37 



legitimate foundation of repentance. The idea 
that he was a sinner against God, and that on 
this account alone he should sorrow, had not as 
yet a defmite place in his thoughts : nor was 
it until the third sabbath after his return from 
the forest that this conviction fastened upon his 
mind. 

In searching an old closet for a book with 
which to while away the tedious hours of the 
sacred day, he chanced upon a worn Bible and 
a mutilated copy of the History of Joseph, which 
he conveyed with secresy to his chamber, and, 
securing himself against interruption, com- 
menced their perusal. So long had he been 
disused to reading, that his attempts to interest 
himself in either of these volumes were for a 
while unsuccessful. At length the often-pe- 
rused story of the Saviour's passion arrested his 
attention ; the conviction of his own sinfulness 
and personal ne^d of the benefits of Christ's 
sufferings gradually unfolded before him, and, 
for the first time in his life, he knelt in the soli- 
tude of his chamber, confessed his sins with 
streaming eyes, and plead with earnestness for 
forgiveness and the favor of offended Divinity. 
Meditation upon the goodness of God augment- 
ed his distress, particularly when he reflected 
that he had so long despised the riches of his 



38 



THE SUPERANNUATE . 



goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering," 
and that lie had so long remamed in careless 
ignorance of the real tendency of the divine 
benevolence. The feelings of his heart were 
imbodied in the lines of our o^yn poet : 

]vliglit but a Httle j^ait. 
A wandering breath of heaven's high melody, 

Descend into my heart, 

Aiid change it. till it be 
Transformed and swallovr cl up, Love, in thee !" 

In public, William veiled ^vith an air of cheer- 
fulness his agony of soul ; yet so expressive is 
the language of nature, speaking through the 
youthful lineaments, and in youthful action, be- 
fore habit and long experience in self-command 
have subjected the strong emotions of the heart 
to imperative control, that his guise was readily 
penetrated. You \^-ill be a Chi'istian before 
long," was the confident language of one vrith. 
whom he attempted, with the show of stoical 
indifference, to hold converse upon the subject 
of religion. In spite of himself he turned away 
to hide his tears. EquaUy was he encoiuaged 
when a recent convert addressed to him the 
searching question, Has God, for Christ's 
sake, pardoned your sins ? Never give over 
seeking ! Jesus Christ has power on earth to 
forgive transgression ! My soul is a witness to 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



39 



the glorious truth !" Encouraged by these de- 
monstrations of the interest of Christians in his 
spiritual welfare, the convicted youth perse- 
vered in prayer and the diligent perusal of the 
sacred volume. At times he was tempted to 
give over the search in despair ; again his dis- 
tress on account of sin amounted to agony ; and 
then, in desperation of soul, he dared to regret 
that he had not died in infancy ; that he had 
not perished in the snow in intoxication ; that 
God had not smitten him with a thunderbolt in 
the midst of his sacrilegious mockery of the 
divine ordinances ; or that he had not perished 
by famine or beasts of prey in the depths of the 
forest. 

Sunny April came, with its birds and flow- 
ers, and the Day spring had not yet dawned 
upon his soul. The old house clock had 
chimed the midnight of its third day, and the 
diligent pendulum had already begun to tell the 
consecrated seconds of the fifth sabbath since 
his return from the wood, and his pillow had 
not yet been disturbed. Kneeling at his chest, 
reclined upon his elbow, his head resting upon 
his hand, with the old Bible spread out before 
him, upon the soiled pages of which a single 
untrimmed candle shed its flickering rays, 
weeping, praying, and reading alternately, his 



40 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



eye fell upon the words, " Behold the Lamb of 
God which taketh away the sin of the world 
and soon after upon another passage which 
riveted his attention, " For God so loved the 
world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth on him should not perish, 
but have everlasting life." Despairing of suc- 
cor from any other source, he made a final effort 
to behold the Lamb ; to believe on the Only-Be« 
gotten ; to surrender his own efforts and yield 
to be saved by grace. Faith prevailed ; he was 
justified before God ; his heart was regenerated 
and " strangely warmed the witnessing Spirit 
whispered, " Son, thy sins be forgiven thee." 
Was it a real voice ? He opened his eyes and 
glanced about his chamber ; he was alone ; his 
heaviness of spirit was gone — was succeeded 
by a peculiar lightness, liveliness, and energy ; 
the energy of the quickening Spirit, breathing 
life into the carnally dead. Was it a dream ? 
He rose from his knees, and descended to the 
yard in front of the house : there were the 
buildings and their rustic inclosures, and there 
before them were the tall poplars, rustling in 
the breath of a serene spring morning : nothing 
external had changed, but within all was light 
and joy, the one imparting the radiance of hea- 
ven to earthly objects, the other refreshing the 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



41 



soul with incipient draughts from the gushing 
well-springs of eternal life ! 

''Thou didst kneel down to Him who came from 
heaven, 

Evil and ignorant, and thou shalt rise 
Holy, and pure, and wise." 

The pillow of the new-bom Christian yields 
rosy sleep, and William awoke in the same 
happy frame to record the 4th of April, 1824, 
as a sabbath free from the tedium that had 
hitherto attended that holy day ; a sabbath de- 
lightfully spent in the service of its divine Au- 
thor. Two weeks after, he united with the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, upon probation, 
and after six months, according to the usage of 
that communion, was received into full connec- 
tion. 

It was on a beautiful afternoon in the middle 
of the June of this year that the subject of 
these reminiscences, with fifteen others, re- 
ceived baptism by immersion, in a stream 
known to the inhabitants of Kingsbury as the 
Halfway Brook, so called because it intersects, 
midway, the road from Fort George to Fort 
Edward, of revolutionary memory. On a little 
island in the midst of the stream stood a group 
of young men, spectators of the scene. " What!" 
exclaimed one of them, " has Wicked Will be- 



42 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



come religious 1 I don't believe it." " Nor I!" 
" Nor I !" was echoed from a dozen voices in 
a breath. Well !" said the first speaker, thrust- 
ing his riding switch deep into the alluvion of 
the little area, " if this willow grows, I will be- 
lieve that he is a Christian." " Agreed !" said 
the volatile company, with shouts of laughter ; 
and the humble twig was left to take root and 
derive aliment from a soil perfectly congenial 
with its natine, and to be abmidantly nourished 
by the vapors sent up from the bosom of the 
stream. Next season the little sprig was in 
full dress, and in a few summers became a 
beautiful tree, denominated, by those acquaint- 
ed with the circumstances, Will's Willow." 
Some years after, I\Ir. Ryder learned the sub- 
sequent history of the osier that was to be in- 
debted for its existence to his perseverance as 
a Christian. During an open winter there 
came upon it a hea^y storm of rain, which froze 
as it fell, and immediately after a violent wind, 
which tore away the branches, brittle with frost 
and laden with ice, leaving the trunk naked and 
desolate. The vivifying energies of a few ge- 
nial seasons once more covered it with verdure, 
and restored its pristine beauty, while its widely- 
extended roots shot forth scions in every direc- 
tion, so that the little island was, in time, lite- 



THE SUPERAXNUATE. 



43 



rally covered with willows. It would be no 
difficult matter for a fanciful mind to trace nu- 
merous points of resemblance between the fate 
of the willow and William Ryder's religious 
or temporal experience ; but, at best, analogies 
between circumstances so entirely independent 
must be far-fetched and fantastical. As the wil- 
low, stripped of its young glories, may allu- 
sively represent him who was shorn of his 
youthful strength, so may it, again clothed with 
beauty and surrounded with flourishing scions, 
be emblematical of the other, blooming in im- 
mortality with those in whose salvation he has 
been instrumental. 

For the remaining two years of William's 
minority, nothing occurred to interrupt the mo- 
notony of a farmer's life, or the uniformity of 
his Christian experience, except that he occa- 
sionally accompanied several faithful and godly 
local preachers to their appointments, and found 
both comfort and edification in following their 
ministrations with exhortation and prayer, as 
opportunity offered. From the hour of his con- 
version, the impression had dwelt in his heart, 
though he would not cherish it, and was often 
hardly conscious of its presence, that God 
would one day call him to preach the gos- 
pel. An abiding consciousness of native in- 



44 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



ability, and want of adaptation to the sacred 
work, together with a hmniliatirig sense of his 
educational disabilities, enabled him to evade, 
by indefinite postponement, the distress ever 
occasioned by the recurrence of the impres- 
sion that the Lord had need of his services in 
his moral vineyard. Imagine, then, his sur- 
prise, when Daniel Brayton, the senior preach- 
er upon the circuit for the conference year 
commencing with the spring of 1826, one 
day rode up to the inclosure which William 
was ploughing, and abruptly said, " The breth- 
ren say that God has called you to preach the 
gospel : now go and preach the gospel, and may 
the blessing of Almighty God be with thee j 
and with this equally singular authorization and ! 
benediction, he set spurs to his horse and rode 
away, leaving his young licentiate in a maze j 
of conflicting feelings and reflections. The ! 
practice of granting verbal licenses to exhorters, 
once common, but always unconstitutional, is 
nearly or quite obsolete in the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church. Its ministry emanate from the 
people. By laymen, candidates are recom- 
mended to the quarterly conference ; from this 
body, composed chiefly of laymen, they receive 
license to exhort or preach, and by this body 
they are recommended to the annual confer- 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



45 



ence, and thus virtually to the ordaining power. 
Yet was it under the irresponsible sanction of 
a verbal license that Mr. Ryder, in the bi|in- 
ning of the following year, accompanied the 
reverend father Henry Ames on a tour through 
the principal places in Washington county, in 
which glorious revivals of religion were in pro- 
gress, and in all which he exercised his gifts, 
labored for souls by night and by day, and en- 
joyed in his own soul the unspeakable blessings 
of the vital godliness he inculcated. The so- 
ciety in Spencer's Hollow, South Granville, 
deserves particular mention in this connection. 
It was here that the youthful exhorter witnessed 
glorious displays of the divine power, and, 
through his own instrumentality, the rise of a 
faithful band, whose number was speedily in- 
creased to a hundred witnesses for the truth ; 
and from which God has since sent forth suc- 
cessful laborers into his vineyard ; as the talent- 
ed piety and ministerial usefulness of Asahel 
Hay ward, Ezra Sprague, and Lewis Whitcomb, 
representatives respectively of the Genesee, 
New- York, and Black River Conferences, will 
amply attest. It was here, too, that he formed 
an acquaintance that soon ripened into intimacy 
with Miss Lovina Whitcomb, who subsequently 
became the sharer of his youthful affections and 



46 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



the partner of his itinerant labors, and who is 
at present the patient soother of his sufferings, 
anJithe hourly minister to the numberless ne- 
cessities incident to his helpless condition. 

The church, of which the relater of these 
incidents was now a member, teaches the whole- 
some and Scriptural doctrine of entire conformity 
to the will of God, and of complete renovation 
in his moral image. To the open profession of 
this God-glorifying and man-reforming doctrine, 
there is often strong opposition, and not unfre- 
quently from professing Christians. Let such 
remark, that every objection that can be urged 
against the profession of sanctification, lies with 
equal force against the avowal of justification ; 
and that those theologians who disallow the 
acknowledgment of the former, deem it equally 
unsafe and improper to confess the latter, ex- 
cept in the most ambiguous terms. The holy 
living, the intelligent and consistent piet^/ of 
several persons of deep experience in the things 
that are of God, silently convinced young Ryder 
of his need of a deeper work of grace. Power- 
fully were these impressions deepened at a 
camp-meeting held in Hartford, Washington 
county, during the September of 1828, while 
he listened to a powerful and lucid exposition 
of this absorbing doctrine by the Rev. George 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



47 



Coles. Here he sought, and, as he humbly be- 
lieves, obtained this pearl of great price, though 
its lustre was ere long dimmed by unfaithful- 
ness and concealment. The wanton and un- 
necessary sacrifice of so great a blessing was 
followed by spiritual dearth, darkness, and 
temptation. From this uncomfortable and dan- 
gerous state he was some time after instrument- 
ally delivered by the wholesome exhibition and 
affectionate application of the comforting pro- 
mises, in a sermon by the Rev. Sherman Minor, 
now resident agent of the Troy Conference 
Academy. At the same camp-meeting, the im* 
pression that God would one day make him a 
minister of his word revived with peculiar force 
under an impassioned sermon from brother 
Coles on the poetical language of the sacred 
rhapsodist, — 

" How beautiful iipon the mountains 
Are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings ; 
That pubhsheth peace ! 
That bringeth good tidings of good — 
That publisheth salvation ! 
That saith unto Zion, 
Thy God reigneth !" 

Little did the eloquent speaker imagine the in- 
fluence of his burning words upon an unculti- 
vated and ignorant youth, as little, perhaps, as 



48 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



that youth knew of the state of his own mind in 
reference to this matter, or of the internal work- 
ings of the Spirit of truth. 
4, By the senior preacher of this year Mr. Ry- 
der was made class-leader ; and it was in the 
exercise of the duties of this delightful, yet re- 
sponsible office, that he Avitnessed the conver- 
sion of George Brown, the well-known mis- 
sionary to Liberia, who continued a useful and 
devoted member of the class, and a local 
preacher in the church, until he heard of a 
wider sphere of usefulness and action, and 
wote to his presiding elder, Rev. Cyrus Prin- 
dle, " If I go to heaven, I must go by the way 
of Liberia " 



THE SUPER AXNU ATE. 



49 



CHAPTER IV. 

The youth 
Proceeds the path of science to explore, 
And now, expanded to the beams of truth. 
New energies and charms unkno^ai before, 
His mind discloses. 

Beattie's Minstrel. 

An unenlightened intellect contrasts pain* 
fully with illuminated moral powers; and the 
brightness of William's Christian experience, 
and the increasing vividness of the impulsions 
to become a minister of the word, served only 
to render his ignorance the more mortifyingly 
conspicuous. Without disparaging the para- 
mount importance of religion, it may be deemed 
one of the choicest fruits of conversion, that he 
who has hitherto found his chief delight in ex- 
ternalities, is now led to retire within himself 
and to create and cherish a love for study, and 
an ambition for mental improvement. Such re- 
sults are illustrious evidences of the value of 
those evangelical doctrines which have exerted 
a no less beneficial influence in the world of 
science than in the world of letters, since the 
benignant dawn of the Reformation. Young 
Ryder's first study was that which shoifid en- 
gage the Christian in every stage of his expe- 
4 



THE SUPER AN KTJATEr. 



rience, tlie Scriptures of divine tnitli. The TTom 
Bible and the age-stricken history of the great 
exemplar of filial duty were his constant com-' 
panions^ and furnished abundant aliment for 
thought and devotion in the earlier part of his 
religious career. Inspired by these with fresh 
eagerness for knowledge, he began to contrive 
how he might increase his stock, and open up 
new channels of information. His means w^ere 
limited, and his time devoted, from sunrise to 
sunset of ever}- weary day in the week, to se- 
vere manual labor: yet modes were discovered 
by which he secured an extension of pecuniary 
ability, and redeemed for study a portion of 
time, and these deserve to be recounted were 
it only to exhibit to youth in like straitened cir- 
cumstances what difficulties an ordinaiy indus- 
try may overcome, and what deficiencies a 
common ingenuity may supply. Weil versed 
in the arts peculiar to our American settlements, 
trapping and hunting, William had long prose- 
cuted successfully these enticing employments, 
and with the avails furnished himself new sup- 
plies of ammimition for his sabbath and holy- 
day excursions. Forbidden bv his newlv- 
adopted principles longer to devote the sabbath 
to such vagrant purposes, he trenched upon his 
hours of repose, and visited his traps before the 



THE SUPER AXNUATE. 



51 



dawn : the woods and brooks contributed libe- 
rally of their valuable furs, and the accruing 
profits were carefully hoarded to be converted 
into literary treasures. Chance threvv^ in his 
way, at a country bookstore, pocket editions of 
the poets Cowper, Pope, ^lilton, and Young, 
and Knox's Winter Evenings in prose, which, 
without any knowledge of their character, ex- 
cept the assurance of the shopkeeper that they 
were good books," he purchased and read 
with avidity. Next the Bible, Milton and 
Young became his especial favorites. The 
sublimity of the former, the gloomy strength of 
the latter ; their historic and classical lore ; 
their profound philosophy of science and cha- 
racter, exeited a no less beneficial influence 
upon the knowledge and taste of the youthful 
reader, than did their liberal and practical theo- 
los^y upon his evangelical views and his per- 
sonal piety. Variously graduated in his esteem 
were the smooth Pope and the racy Cowper, 
the accurate Josephus and the elegant Gold- 
smith ; which, together with Tytler's and Rol- 
lin's histories, Butler's Analogy, and Clarke 
upon the Pentateuch, were successively pur- 
chased, or borrowed, and diligently perused. 
Busied with hard labor during the day, and re- 
' quired by a family regulation to retire early at 



52 



THE SUPERANNUATE, 



night, he secretly practiced returning to the 
kitchen after the family had gone to their beds, 
where he stretched himself at full length upon 
the old-fashioned hearth, and indulged his fa- 
vorite passion for reading, by the light of a fire 
of pine sticks ! A book was now the constant 
companion of his toil, Harvey was read while 
following the ha.rrow; Bmiyan, and several 
pious m.emoirs and books of devotion, were 
nearly committed to memory while teaming 
upon the smoother roads, with the reins in one 
hand and the volume in the other ; and while 
his horses were enjoying their noon respite 
from labor, he not unfrequently preferred the 
shade of a tree and some favorite author to the 
enjopnents of the social board. 

The first months of his emancipation from 
apprenticeship were spent in diligent study at 
" Beebe's Academy," in Chester, where the 
various branches of common and higher Eng- 
lish were added to his rapidly-accumulating 
stock of information. Improving upon the hint 
afforded by a certain scholar, who, when asked 
by what means he had acquired so much know- 
ledge, replied, By not being ashamed to ask 
questions when I was ignorant," William ha- 
bitually minuted, in a common-place book, every- 
thing from his course of reading which he did 



THE SUPERANNUATE, 



53 



not understand, and troubled his friends with 
interrogatories until he arrived at satisfactory 
explanations upon doubtful or obscure points. 
Nor were his early religious associations un- 
friendly to intellectual improvement. Besides 
the kindly assistance of the fervent, self-edu- 
cated heralds of the cross who had the cure of 
his soul, he was favored for a brief period ^vith 
the intimacy and literary converse of one to 
whose memoiy he would pause to pay, for the 
thousandth time, the tribute of tears. Philip 
Spaun was the only son of pious parents, and 
was equally precocious in piety and intellectual 
attainment. Highly cultivated by the diligent 
improvement of all the opportmiities that wealth 
and doating affection could bestow, he had gTa- 
duated with honor, and was temporarily filling 
the office of common-school instructor, while 
his main object was to fit himself for active and 
efficient usefulness in the ranks of the itine- 
rancy. From the moment of their introduction 
the hearts of the two young men were knit to- 
gether, and they became bosom friends. When 
they met, it was their unifoiTn practice, after 
exchanging salutations, to seek out a place to 
pray, and they seldom parted after a social in- 
terview without commending each other to God 
and the word of his grace. The treasures of Phi- 



54 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



lip's library, of his well-stored mind, and of liis 
overflowing heart, were equally at William's 
command. While commmiing with such a 
spirit he was inhaling pliilosophy sanctified by 
religion. Nor did he profit less by his friend's 
personal excellences, his delicacy of sentiment 
and refinement of manner, than from his exam- 
ple as an eloquent preacher. Master of his 
subject, he could dignify it with reason, orna- 
ment it from the whole range of literatm'e, and 
inspire it from the Irvdng well-spring of his own 
devotional spirit ; a spirit already standing on 
the threshold of eternity, and gathering feeling 
and illustration from the awful world with which 
it communed. His voice was suited to the 
sentiment to which it gave utterance. Of mode- 
rate strength and clearness upon the middle 
keys, it was peculiarly rich in those expres- 
sive and felicitous undertones, which, after the 
enunciation of an idea that startles the au- 
dience like an electric flash, leave the echo 
of the report to roll and roll until all hearts 
kindle into sublimity, or melt with emotion. 
His coimtenance was one of those which, once 
seen, haunt the memory for years ; his forehead 
was high, bold, and intellectual ; his brows were 
dark and arching, and smiles radiated from his 
deep blue eyes over features ever in serene re- 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



5^5 



pose, as sunlight plays quietly upon the sombre 
lineaments of autumn. He was a strong man 
in prayer, and when he poured forth his soul 
in this delightful exercise, his words and man- 
ner were clothed with an unearthly majesty, and 
all who heard were pervaded with an awful 
sense of the presence of the Invisible. Too 
frail and lovely for earth, this delightful exotic 
was early removed to its congenial heaven. 
When William heard of his death, 

" A shadow fell upon his heart 
That will not flit away 1" 

And yet, in view of Philip Spaun's excellences, 
his social virtues, his piety, his fitness for death 
and heaven, his surviving friend could not but 
apostrophize him in the language of the master 
spirit of modem poesy — 

Bright be the place of thy soul ; 

No lovelier spirit than thine 
E'er burst from its mortal control, 

In the orbs of the blessed to shine. 
On earth thou wert all but divine, 

As thy soul shaU immortally be ; 
And om' sorrow may cease to repine, 

When we know that thy God is with thee. 

Light be the turf of thy tomb, 

May its verdure like emeralds be, 

There should not be a shadow of gloom, 
In aught that reminds us of thee. 



56 



THE SUPER ANNUATir. 



Young flowers and an evergreen tree 
May spring frons tbe sptst of tby rest , 

But nor cypre&s nor yew let us see^ 
For why should we niourn for the blest T*^^ 

For tlie four years^ that mtervened between 
Mr. Ryde/s eonyersion sod the period of his 
engaging in the public ministrations of the 
word, he endeavored thus to apply himself to 
the acqnisition of knowledge from all tBe purees 
within his reach; from books, from friends^, 
from observation of men and things to acquire 
the use of language, to mark the style of authors,, 
to treasure idea;S and to devise modes of expres- 
sion> attractive by variety and a certain charac- 
teristic quaintness, and striking by their force 
and definiteness. Upon his course of reading 
and study, after he entered the itinerant ranksj, 
it is unnecessary to enlarge.. The arniual con- 
ferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
prescribe to probationers an ameount of reading 
by no means inconsiderable. Candidates for 
orders undergo strict and thorough examina-- 
tions in ecclesiastical history,, mental and moral 
science, philosophy of language, logic, and the 
various systems of theology, didactic and po- 
lemic, exegetic and prophetic, typic and para- 
bolic, pastoral and practical. This course oc- 
cupies four years, and, with the exception of 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



57 



ancient languages and literature, is as extensive 
as that of any theological seminary ; and is the 
more valuable to the student, it is believed, from 
the fact that he is compelled to make immediate 
practical use of all his acquisitions. The Bible, 
Wesley's Hymns, and Discipline, are the itine- 
rant's constant companions. The first is the 
great fountain of Arminian theology, the second 
are equally inspiriting to taste and devotion, and 
the last is the repository of momentum for the 
propulsion and regulation of the most perfect 
ecclesiastical mechanism in existence. In a 
church governed by a constitution admirably 
blending the elements of efficient and salutary 
sway, nicely adjusting the respective relations 
of executive power and popular freedom, equally 
fitted to control the caprices of fluctuating opin- 
ion, and to suppress the arrogant and aristocratic 
pretensions of single dignitaries, acquaintance 
with the written law is of the utmost conse- 
quence, especially to the executive constituted 
by that law. Healthful was the reproof ad- 
ministered to our young itinerant by his presid- 
ing elder, Rev. T. Spicer, w^hen the latter, at 
one of his quarterly visitations, inquired for a 
Discipline, which the former was unable to fur- 
nish : — " He that hath no sword, let him sell 
his coat and buy one." With these iudispeii- 



58 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



sable works, as well as with the liberal system 
of studies prescribed by the New- York and 
Troy Conferences, Mr. Ryder labored diligently 
to make himself acquainted. He had always a 
book in his pocket, practiced reading and study- 
ing his sermons on horseback ; and, at his lodg- 
ing places for the night, invariably devoted 
much of the time to study which others were 
giving to repose. He had accumulated a small 
but choice collection of books, and had deter- 
mined on an acquaintance with the world of 
thought as well as the world of action. Slight 
as were his attainments, his present solace is 
a living consciousness of having diligently im- 
proved his limited opportunities ; and of having 
endeavored to furnish his mind with every spe- 
cies of knowledge within his reach, and to con- 
stitute himself, in his vocation, a workman that 
needed not to be ashamed. The invidious 
cant — 

Gi' me a spark o' nature's fire, 
That's a' the learning I desire," 

never fell from his lips. His only and frequent 
regret has been that he could not have enjoyed 
the facilities for classic education with which 
our young men are now favored. When he 
entered the itinerant ranks there was but one 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



59 



Methodist college, and that a southern one, in 
existence. Now there are twelve ; which, 
with one or more extensive and well- endowed 
academies in every conference, are diffusing 
the light of liberal and sanctified learning 
through all our borders. 

Walk about Zion, and go round about her! 
Tell the towers thereof; 
Mark ye well her bulwarks ! 
Consider her palaces." 

Education is becoming a palace of beauty to 
the Zion of Methodism, a frowning bulwark 
and tower of strength to resist the encroach- 
ments of those who would invade the strong 
holds of this rising commonwealth, despoil it of 
its prosperity and name, and who would fain 
make its fair inheritance a reproach among the 
churches. 



60 



THE SUPERAXNUATEo 



CHAPTER V. 

Not sedentaiy all ; there are who roara 
To scatter seeds of life — 

Their altai's they forego, their homes they quit, 
Fields which they love and paths they daily ti'od, 

And cast the future upon Pro\-idence, 
As men the dictates of whose inward sense 
Outweighs the world ; whom self-deceiving wit 
Lures not from what they deem the cause of God. 

Wordsworth. 

Itinerancy is one of the peculiar featiu'es 
of Methodism. Though this mode of dissemi- 
nating evangelical truth originated with the 
primitive Christians, it was reserved for the 
transcendent genius of John Wesley to frame it 
into a beautiful and harmonious system, adapted 
to the present state and wants of the world. 
No merely human machinery revolves without 
friction, and itinerancy is certainly not without 
its embarrassments ; yet the experience of 
nearly a century, upon two continents, among 
people as widely differmg as the inhabitants of 
the various districts of England and Ireland ; 
the United States and Canadas ; and the newly- 
settled colonies of Liberia and Sierra Leone, 
has afforded convincing proof of the intrinsic 
merits of the system, while the steadiness with 
Mhich the conferences of both hemispheres 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



61 



have rebuked innovation, exhibits a clear con- 
viction of its practical benefits. Other churches 
are infected with the diffusive leaven ; yet the 
evangelist scheme, the only existing apology 
for itinerancy beyond the precincts of Method- 
ism, bears as little relation to it as do the er- 
ratic motions of a comet to the harmonious ac- 
tion of the systems to which its very appear- 
ance is a source of alarm and danger. 

Mr. Ryder's first essay at itinerancy was 
made while he was an exhorter, and Warren 
circuit, lying upon the north-western shore of 
Lake George, was the scene of his labors. The 
charge was divided into two nearly equal parts 
by the Hudson River, wliich, at the time, was 
at the height of spring freshet, and impassable. 
This made it necessary for the senior preacher, 
Rev. Seymour Colman, and our exhorter, who 
was the temporary supply for the junior preacher, 
to make each his circuit upon his own side of 
the stream without crossing, as usual, to inter- 
change appointments. Thrice upon the sab- 
bath, and every evening in the week, the zeal- 
ous youth exhorted the multitudes who thronged 
the preaching places ; souls were converted and 
the cause of God prospered. Visiting from 
house to house afforded him opportunities for 
good, and for observing the various phases of 



62 THE SUPERANNUATE, 

human nature, v/hich lie by no means neglected 
to improve. Upon the lake-shore stood a small 
farm-house, new and imfinished, whose neat 
external appearance seemed to promise a kindly 
reception, and he entered. The economical 
proprietor of the domicil v/as ceiling the princi- 
pal room with planed boards. Introducing him- 
self as a Methodist preacher, the visitor begged 
the pri^dlege of conversing with them on the 
subject of religion. " You may preach to the 
women if you will," replied the man surlily, and 
without taking his eyes from his work, " they 
have time for such matters ; but it is as much as 
/ can do to live in this world, without meddling 
with the concerns of the next.''' Thus roughly 
licensed, and welcomed by the female members 
of the family with a Vvdnning cordiality that 
made ample amends for the forbidding coarse- 
ness of the master of the mansion, the youthful 
exhorter broke forth with a familiar hymn, to 
the loud and clear tones of which the women 
listened reverentially ; while the man of nails 
doggedly hammered away at the ceiling, ne- 
cessarily making a most unrhythmical accom- 
paniment. The unpracticed licentiate knelt to 
pray, and the blows of the c}Tiical workman 
were the sole responses to his petitions ; the 
undaunted exhorter waxed warm, and the cap- 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



63 



tious artisan plied the hammer spitefully ; the 
prayer became vehement, and the work pro- 
gressed furiously ; the voice of the supplicant 
grew louder, and the strokes of the pertinacious 
hanunerer were laid on with increasing energy, 
until the hollow ceiling rang again, and the 
apartment was filled with stunning reverbera- 
tions ; the petitioner was rapidly approaching 
the acme of his fervor, and his stentorian lungs 
prevailed over the deafening din : the workman 
heard in spite of himself ; the Spirit winged con- 
conviction to his heart ; his hammer dropped 
from his convulsive grasp, and when the prayer 
was ended he was bathed in tears ! Before 
the itinerant completed his next tour around the 
circuit, the whole family was converted, and 
immediately connected themselves with the 
society as probationers. At the end of six 
weeks Mr. -Ryder returned home v/ith more 
satisfaction than he had felt in setting out, and 
with the sincere determination never to make 
another essay at public teaching, a work for 
I which he deemed himself, by nature, grace, 
I age, and education, alike unprepared. Never- 
' theless, at the urgent entreaties of Rev. T. Spi- 
cer, he was induced in the following season to 
labor for a few months upon Whitehall circuit, 
then embracing extensive portions of New- York 



i 



64 THE SUPERANNUATE. 

and Vermont, and occupying the chain of towns 
which lie around PouUney station, Castleton 
upon the north, Gramdlle on the south, Middle- 
town and its hills upon the east, and Whitehall 
and the lake upon the west. To recite the 
round of appointments, and the ever^-'-day occur- 
rences of a circuit preacher's life, would be alike 
tedious and unprofitable. A few incidents only 
claim attention. Dean Swift is said to have 
commenced the service of the English Church 
on a day w^hen none but his clerk and himself 
were present, with, Dearly beloved Jonathan, 
the Scripture moveth us in sundry places," &c.; 
and Lorenzo Dow is reputed to have preached 
to a solitary hearer. In imitation of these il- 
lustrious, though somewhat eccentric exemplars, 
our young itinerant, at Whitehall village, upon 
a very stormy sabbath, addressed to a single 
auditor the prophet's rebuke, "Thou art the 
man ;" and never had a speaker a more attentive 
or deeply-affected audience I 

In the uniform endeavor to adapt his preach- 
ing to times and places, Mr. Ryder was accus- 
tomed to press into the service of truth illustra- 
tions drawn from surrounding circumstances, or 
from present topographical relations. It was 
during the period of his unauthorized exhorter- 
ship that he fulfilled an appointment upon Gage's 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 65 

hill, at a school-liouse fronting toward Lake 
George, about two miles distant, and in fair 
view of that transparent sheet. "So run that 
ye may obtain," was the text forced upon the 
speaker's mind by the recollection of a revolu- 
tionary tradition, and by the presence of several 
hoary-headed veterans, in whose memories .the 
events of that arduous struggle existed with 
original freshness. Upon the approach of Bur- 
goyne's army, skirted with clouds of savage 
allies, the frontier posts, a chain of works de- 
signed to command the lakes and the Hudson, 
were successively, and almost without resist- 
ance, abandoned. Fort George was evacuated 
by a small body of troops, and the van of the 
ravager took immediate possession of the works. 
At Bloody Pond, a mile from Gage's Hill to the 
south-east, a few Americans in full retreat for 
Fort Edward, eleven miles distant, were en- 
countered by a party of Indians, and, after an 
obstinate resistance, nearly all cut down. The 
little pond, with an area of sixty rods, was lite- 
rally choked with the slain, and discolored with 
blood to that degree as to deserve the sangui- 
nary appellation by which it has been from that 
day distinguished, A few survivors fled toward 
Fort Edward, but were individually overtaken, 
butchered and scalped by the merciless Indian 
5 * 



66 



THE SUPER ANNUaT:E, 



runners. In advance of these was Ammi Wil- 
son, who had outstripped his pursuers, and al- 
ready fancied himself beyond their ken ; but 
stopping to breathe and to moisten his lips at 
the Halfway Brook, he saw at a distance, on 
looking back, four or fire of the keen-scented 
foes upon his track. Fleet as the wind, he 
bounded forward toward the fort, his only hope 
of safety, and that still seven miles distant. In 
ascending Sandy Hill his speed flagged^ and 
his enduring pursuers so gained upon him at 
every step, that, when at the top of the hill, he 
was barely out of the reach of the tomahawk 
of the foremost runner. He had still two weary 
miles before him, and in traversing the dusty 
plain at the top of his speed, a voice seemed to 
cry in his ears, " Run for life I run for life 
and by almost supernatural exertion he escaped, 
as by a hair's breadth, the tomahawk which the 
foremost Indian hurled after him with a yell of 
disappointment as a whizzing bullet admonished 
him that he was within reach of the sharp- 
shooters from the pickets, and warned him to 
make a precipitate retreat. On this very hill," 
said the exhorter, " stood the devoted defenders 
of the soil, when the exploding magazine of the 
deserted works sent after them its report like 
the tread of an earthquake ! Yonder is the pond 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



6? 



whose waters commingled with their blood ! 
And in the distance is the plain where Ammi 
Wilson ran for life ! and for life merely : for the 
superhuman exertions of that day crippled and 
maimed his every limb ; and yet, disabled as 
he was ever after, he never was heard to regret 
that he had preserved his life at the expense 
of his physical energies ! If the life of the 
body be worthy of such effort, what ought we 
not to put forth when the life of the soul is at 
stake ! Sinner, the avenger of blood is upon 
thy track ! the city of refuge is before thee ! 
urge thy course with all speed to its walls ! 
and, like Ammi Wilson, ciy as you nm, ' Life ! 
life ! eternal life !' " The revolutionists melted 
into tears ! 

Similar to this was a discourse delivered 
by the subject of these reminiscences at a 
private house near Whitehall village ; to in- 
troduce which it will be necessary to rehearse 
an incident of his earlier history, as an import- 
ant link in the chain. Shortly after the death 
of his father, which occurred about the time 
that William reached his majority, his mother 
wrote him from Peru, NcAV-York, that she v/as 
in indigent circumstances, and soliciting what 
little relief it was in his power to bestow. Ga- 
thering up his little means, he took passage on 



68 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



board the steamer bound down the lake ; and 
here, for the first and last thne in his life, the 
freak came over him to play the gentleman of 
fashion. He repaired to the cabin at the sum- 
m-ons of the dinner-bill, and by an ostentatious 
display of silver, illustrated the remark of the 
American sage, that a man is generally flush 
with money when he has but a little, lest his 
poverty should be discovered. Imitating his 
illustrious exemplars, now enjoying their cigars^ 
and with that stupid, lack-lustre, animal expres- 
sion of countenance, Avhich the fumes of the 
weed ever generate, strutting about the forward 
deck under a cloud of smoke like that which 
concealed from the vigilant Sir Hendrick the 
valiant Dutchmen of Communipaw, our hero 
deemed himself behind the times until he had 
secured this indispensable appendage of the 
American gentle?nan. The youthful yeoman 
had never before been on board a steamer, and 
was wholly unacquainted with its usages and 
localities ; but tracing out the bar," as the bee 
hunter does his prey, by the line of comers and 
goers, he forthwith appropriated a lighted "long 
nine," and, thrusting his hands into his pockets, 
went swaggering about the decks after the style 
of his superiors, whose manners, here as else- 
where, when under the brutish nicotian influ- 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



69 



ence, could scarcely be misrepresented by the 
caricaturing pencil of Madam Trollope, or the 
satire of " Boz." Totally unaccustomed to the 
use of tobacco, its effects were soon apparent 
in certain qualmish sensations in the region of 
the epigastrum. The cool breeze of the lake 
postponed the immediate effects, and the new- 
found gentleman whiffed away most pertina- 
ciously, until no longer able to resist its influ- 
ences, he leaned over the tafferel of the steamer, 
and " settled his accomits" with such earnest- 
ness that he was thrown into convulsions, 
and his countenance assumed the image of 
death. The alarmed passengers reported to 
the captain, " A man dying !" The fresh- wa- 
ter Palinurus hastened to the spot and inquired, 
" What ails you ?" — " Hiccup ! I know, sir." 
" Used to such turns ?" — " Hiccup ! No sir." 
" What is the matter ?" — " Hiccup ! Playing 
the gentleman, sir !" 

He found his mother and her family in needy 
plight, and hastened to disburse his little funds 
to their advantage, deeply regretting that he 
had sacrificed any of the store to vanity, and 
paid so dearly for a lesson which many have 
learned at a much greater cost — -the idle folly 
of aping, without the requisite means or man- 
ners j aii's of gentility. A single dollar was re- 



70 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



served for his deck-passage up the lake. He 
arrived at Whitehall late on a rainy afternoon, 
hungry, penniless, and a total stranger in the 
place, and set out on foot for home. Wood 
Creek vras at its height with the fall rains, and 
the road along its bank was submerged. To 
advance was impossible, and William was re- 
duced to the humiliating alternative of stating 
his necessities and soliciting charity at the farm 
houses. Repulsed at three or fom' in succes- 
sion, he was at length kindly received and hos- 
pitably entertained at the very house in which, 
after an interval of some years, he was now to 
preach. The beggar was forgotten ; the youth- 
ful itinerant was a stranger, and no one traced 
the least identity between them. " I was a 
stranger," said the text, " and ye took me in." 
The doctrine of Christian benevolence was elu- 
cidated, and in the practical application the 
speaker images forth a particular illusti'ation. 
A vain youth has foolishly expended his last 
penny ; night is upon him ; he is a stranger in a 
strange land ; he is forced to beg a shelter for 
his houseless head, and a morsel to satisfy the 
cravings of nature ; the Christian heart, mold- 
ed in benevolence, compassionates his case ; 
hospitality throws open the door ; he is wel- 
comed to the abundance of the ample mansion; 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



71 



the cup of cold water is given ; the donor has 
been " mindful to entertain strangers," and he 
shall not lose his reward. This," said the 
speaker with emotion, " is not a mere creation 
of the imagination. Such were once the cir- 
cumstances of your preacher : this was the 
kindly roof, and these the benevolent hearts that 
afforded him shelter, liad compassion on his 
folly, and ministered to his necessities ! ' I was 
a stranger, and ye took me in,' and you shall 
not lose your reward!" The household, upon 
whom the identity between the young mendicant 
and the young itinerant gradually unfolded, 
burst into tears! Since Mr. Ryder's sojourn 
under their friendly roof, the benevolent father 
of the family had gone to receive, at the hands 
of Him " who renders to every man according 
to his deeds,'^ an untold reward for his kindness 
to the wanderer ! 

While he was upon this circuit, Mr. Ryder 
was introduced to a man calling himself Loren- 
zo Dow; and if long hair, squalid beard, slo- 
venly dress, and eccentric manners could con- 
stitute a Dow, the populace were not at fault 
for believing this to be the veritable Lorenzo. 
A multitude flocked to hear him : the school- 
house was crammed to suffocation. Resigning 
lxi3 cliair to a lady, the pxeaclier crowded his 



72 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



way out of the house j and soon returned bear- ? 
ing a huge flat stone, which he first warmed by 
the fire, then got upon it and announced his 
text in a low, drawling, monotonous tone to the 
last word, which he exploded in the ears of his 
startled auditors with the full force of his sten- \_ 
torophonic powers — "That which is bom of 
flesh is flesh ; that which is born of the Spirit 
is SPIRIT 1 1 !" This caperer was no more like 
the real Dow, whom Mr. Ryder afterward heard 
preach in Troy, than was his empty tirade like 
a gospel sermon. 

At one of his appointments on this circuit, a 
young lady remained in class-meeting after 
preaching, whom our minister addressed with 
afiectionate seriousness upon the topic of per- 
sonal religion. " It is all nonsense !" she ex- 
claimed, echoing with giddy rudeness the sen- 
timents in which she had been nurtured by 
skeptical parents, " You will die in your sins 
said the faithful leader, " and wake up in per- 
dition!" " Thank God!" she replied, " that you 
are not my judge." " God's word judges you," 
returned the preacher ; " be sure your sins will 
find you out." A few years transpired in folly 
and sin, and she lay upon her death-bed. Bit- 
terly in her last hours did she regret her con- 
duct. " 0, that I could once more see that 



THE SUPERANNUATE, 



73 



abused sei-vant of God !" she exclaimed again 
and again, " that I might ask his forgiveness for 
my rudeness and wickedness, and, if not too 
late, solicit his prayers for my eternal welfare !" 
She died leaving no evidence of a change of 
heart, in extreme anguish and inconsolable 
despair. 

O what a sign of evil life it is, 

When death's approach is seen so terrible 

During Mr. Ryder's brief sojourn upon White- 
hall circuit, revivals of religion were in con- 
stant progress, and he bears in grateful remem- 
brance the piety and useful labors of many 
faithful souls. At the end of four and a half 
months he returned to Granville, to resume, as 
he supposed finally, the avocations of ordinary 
life. 



74 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



CHAPTER VI. 

How schiilen thei preche but thei be sent ? as it is 
writun, hou faire ben tiie feet of hem that prechen 
pees, of hem that prechen good thingis ? 

Wiclif's Eomaynes, 1380. 

How shall they preach except they be sent ? as it is 
written, how beautifull are the feete of them which 
biing glad tidings of peace, and bring glad tidings of 
good things? Genevan Bible, 1578. 

" I HAVE had many anxious thoughts about 
taking orders," says Cowper in one of his beau- 
tiful epistles ; " and I believe every new con- 
vert is apt to think himself called upon for that 
purpose." Doubtless, one of the first-fruits of 
genuine conversion is a burning zeal for the 
salvation of others. Yet this first fervor may 
be, and we believe should be, carefully distin- 
guished from the real evidences, external and 
internal, of a divine commission to elevate the 
purple tokens of a world's salvation. Mistake 
and culpable carelessness upon a point so vital 
to Christianity have been the bane of the church 
in every stage of its existence. On the one 
hand, the holy calling has been degraded into 
a mere erudite profession, to be chosen or put 
off at will, and on the other, it has suffered vio- 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 75 

lence from empirical pretensions and intrusive 
fanaticism. The ravings of the latter and the 
exclusive arrogance of the former differ by a 
wide and equal remove from the genuine indi- 
cations of a call to herald the " glad tidings," 
evidenced to the inquirer by the permanent, in- 
dwelling propulsions of the guiding Spirit ; by 
the monitory " wo is me" chilling the restive 
soul, and awing it into submission, when, like 
the prophet of Nineveh, it would endeavor to 
escape, by flight, the heavenly requisition ; by 
the defeat of cherished plans and the evident 
providential hedging up of chosen courses of 
life ; by the provision of means for suflicient 
mental improvement ; by the divine blessing on 
incipient labors and the opening up of avenues 
of good to the souls of men ; and finally, by 
the enlightened decision of the church, award- 
ed by the common voice of an edified and dis- 
criminating membership and the sanction of its 
constituted impowering authorities. With Mr. 
Ryder, preaching became, from the moment of 
his conversion, a subject of anxious solicitude. 
He felt impelled from the first to call sinners to 
repentance ; nor did it please God, as in the 
case of the pious poet and letter writer, to give 
him " full satisfaction as to the propriety of de- 
clining" the call. He had hoped, however, to 



76 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



be permitted to exercise his gifts in that field 
of usefubiess which employs so many excellent i 
men in our church, the local relation. He ex- 
pected and desired to retain this capacity, and 
while he labored incidentally for the salvation 
of sinners, to pursue statedly the secular occu- 
pation in which he had been educated. To 
this compromising course his spiritual advisers , 
the official organs of the church, were decid- 
edly hostile ; and so urgently did they press 
upon him the duty of entering the traveling 
connection that he could by no means banish 
the harassing idea from his thoughts. It fast- 
ened itself fii'mly upon his mind, and gave rise 
to the most agonizing reflections and the most 
intense mental conflicts. His ignorance of the 
world, his native diffidence, his unintelligible- 
ness as a speaker, his sense of a want of ca- 
pacity to edify the experienced and to instruct 
the young, appeared to be insuperable barriers ' 
in the way of his usefulness and ultimate sue- ' 
cess. At times he determined to dismiss the i 
subject altogether, actually sealed up those parts 
of his hymn book having immediate reference 
to this subject, and seriously contemplated 
taking the same liberty with certain passages 
of the volume of inspiration, which, when they 
met his eye, thrilled his soul with the startling 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



77 



suddenness of the galvanic shock. Yet the 
gentle impulsions of duty, the urgent voice of 
the church, the love of Christ, the love of souls, 
finally triumphing, induced him to resign his 
own judgment, and yield to those who in- 
sisted upon his immediate transfer to an 
effective position in the general work. He 
was licensed to preach in May, 1830, and 
consented to labor for one year under the 
presiding elder. Horse and equipments, port- 
manteau and furnishings, the usual and in- 
dispensable paraphernalia of the regular itine- 
rant, are put in immediate requisition : farewell 
benedictions are pronounced in the midst of 
tears, and the Christian knight errant, unattend- 
ed by squire or princely train, sets off in pur- 
suit of conquests over error, to enter the lists 
with the powers of darkness, to free from thral- 
dom those who " were all their lifetime subject 
to bondage," and to be proclaimed victor in 
many a sore conflict with the oppressors of a 
ruined race. Cambridge circuit and his future 
colleague. Rev. Roswell Kelley, received him 
with cordial kindness and a most lenient dispo- 
sition toward his deficiencies and inexperience. 
Ashgrove Avas one of their regular appointments. 
Ashgrove ! how many hallowed associations 
connected with the history of American Me- 



I 



T8 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



thodism cluster around this sacred spot ! Here 
Asbmy had proclaimed the "free and full" sal- 
vation ! Here had stood Whatcoat and George, 
and here the venerable Hedding received that 
which, since his consecration to the episco- 
pate, he has imparted to so many others, the 
*^ authority to exercise the office of a deacon in 
the church of God.'^ Here the eccentric Billy 
Hibbard uncovered the bottomless pit to the 
imaginations of an electrified audience. From 
this hallowed place the spirit of father Noble 
escaped to Abraham's bosom. This aged 
preacher of Methodism closed his useful career 
with a powerful exhortation, in which he gave 
utterance to the sentiment that he " would ra« 
ther go home to glory from the pulpit than from 
the pillow," and, singular to relate, was instant- 
ly taken at his wor4 ! In the midst of the 
shouts of the edified hosts of God's elect, he 
sallied backward to his seat, raised his eyes to 
heaven — his spirit fled ; his countenance still 
beaming with ineffable delight, as if it radiated 
the glory of the celestial visitants commissioned 
to release the holy soul from its thraldom, and 
to convoy it to that fruition for which it had so 
ardently aspired ! Here lies Thomas Ashton, to 
whom this sweet retirement, this chosen retreat 
of the genius of our Zion, is indebted for the 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



79 



name it bears. Here, too, is the grave of Em- 
bury, the first preacher of full redemption that 
crossed the broad waters. A native of the 
emerald isle, he contributed to swell the tide 
of emigration to the wild west, aided in the es- 
tablishment of a system as novel to modern 
Christianity as most of its features were familiar 
to the ancient, and found a quiet resting place 
at the base of the Green Mountains. Would 
that that rest had remained undisturbed ! Would 
that he had been left to his solitary repose by 
the flowing brook, and beneath the spreading 
oak in whose shade he was originally buried ! 
Would that there his monument had been erect- 
ed ! His name, standing out in relief from the 
snowy marble or moss-gathering granite, should 
have been the talisman of life and illumination 
to the oblivious and shadowy past, and its 
visions should have floated before the rapt pil- 
grim to this holy shrine as life-like realities ! 
That single name would have sufficed to secure 
his sleep from unhallowed profanation ; would 
have rendered his monument as inviolable as 

; the sarcophagus of Mount Yernon, and as im- 

' mortal as the pillars of Hercules ! 

^ The year after Mr. Ryder labored on this 
circuit, the remains of Embur}' were exhumed 
and re-interred in the public burial place with 



80 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



appropriate funereal rites, of which an admirable 
eulogy upon this illustrious pioneer by his dis- 
tinguished countryman, John Newland Mafiit, 
formed a prominent part. The system he con- 
tributed to introduce has gone on, and the 
name of Embury is on every tongue ; yet alike 
unconscious of the brief record of his virtues 
upon the simple tablet that surmounts his grave, 
and of that wide-spread fame which has em- 
balmed his memory in the hearts of millions, 
he awaits the resurrection in the quiet seclu- 
sion of the church-yard at Ashgrove ! 

Upon this circuit the house of "father King" 
was the " preachers' home here the itinerants 
experienced those attentions and kindnesses 
which alone can render so unsettled a mode of 
life endurable, which traveling preachers gene- 
rally know how fully to appreciate, and which 
a few only are disposed to exacts and that per- 
haps in a ratio similar to the indisposition of 
some lay members to hestoio. In the ample 
halls of this mansion, distinguished for its tem- 
poral hospitalities, many precious seasons of 
social prayer were enjoyed, and scores of souls 
happily converted at the rude bench which 
served for a temporary altar. Kind friends and 
powerful religious interest were found on all 
parts of the circuit, yet theirs was by no means 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 81 

an unmingled cup. Trials and perils attended 
their footsteps, and sometimes persecution 
mingled in the train. Missiles, harsh language, 
baying with dogs, and even a dastardly attempt 
to stab the horses of the preachers in their 
stables, indicated the spirit of hostility that ex- 
isted at certain points, and yet the relater of 
these facts is not prepared to say that these 
demonstrations were entirely unprovoked. A 
better knowledge of human nature would have 
taught him not to challenge opposition by ec- 
centric and unnecessary roughness of speech in 
his exhibitions of truth, and in his reproofs, to 
those giddy and reckless youth of both sexes, 
whose levity frequently transcended the bounds 
of conventional politeness, and of respect for 
the worship of God. Severity is sometimes 
needful, harshness is rarely called for. So ex- 
tensive was their parish, embracing Salem, 
Cambridge, Sandgate, Arlington, Manchester, 
and Dorset, besides incidental appointments 
at places bearing the romantic appellations, 
" Antioch," " Hards crabble," and " Hells-kitch- 
en," that the two preachers were constantly 
upon the road, and exposed to its numerous and 
sometimes calamitous casualties. Of these the 
junior itinerant met with his full share. He 
was ever upon an animal of mettle, and hazard- 
6 



82- 



THE SUPERANNUATE". 



ed his life in one or two Gilpin expeditions, of 
which the following is a specimen — He was 
passing the Pawlet church one day at an easy 
pace, when his horse took a sudden fright, and, 
in despite of bit or bridle, ran furiously down th^ 
steep hill upon whose summit that church is lo- 
cated ; the saddle turned, and its occupant saved 
himself from the ground by clinging to the neck 
of his unmanageable courser his foot was en- 
tangled in the opposite stirrup, and he hung upon 
the side of the fiery animal, receiving the strokes 
of his hoofs at every bound : when at length his 
foot was disengaged, and he was no longer in 
danger of being dragged. Hector-like, upon the 
ground, he loosed his hold, and the disencum- 
bered horse brought up his furious career at the 
place of brother Nathan Allen, a full mile from 
the point where he started. Though somewhat 
battered by his involuntary expedition, the horse- 
man was not seriously or permanently injured. 
In the following winter, while crossing Arling- 
ton Mountain, on his way to an appointment, 
he became so chilled with cold as to be unable 
to guide his horse, or even to regain his hat, 
which the wind blew off, and but for the timely 
aid of an unexpected passenger, he must soon 
have perished upon the high and bleak summit. 
At another time, in company with Kelley and 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



83 



his little son, about six years of age, lie was 
descending a gentle declivity to the causeway 
of a new bridge over a mill-stream, Vvdien the 
wayward, hard-bitted horse straggled from the 
road in defiance of the rein, mitil the v»'heel of the 
vehicle poised upon the verge of the unguarded 
buttress, upon which the little v/ooden arch 
rested. The men leaped to the ground, horse, 
boy, and wagon were precipitated from the 
giddy height, the latter upon the ground below, 
the former into water twelve feet deep. Mr, 
Ryder plunged after them, and rescued the boy, 
who, without betraying any symptoms of fright, 
cried out, A cold bath, brother Ryder and 
after placing the heroic lad, dripping and shiver- 
ing, in the arms of his agonized father, he pro- 
ceeded to extricate the struggling anim_al from 
his thraldom, though not without some inklings 
of an intention to let him drown for his ungainly 
stubbornness ! 

The district camp-meeting for this year v/as 
a season of unusual interest. To the subject 
of these recollections, camp-meeting was ever, 
in his own phrase, "the loveliest place this 
side of heaven." 

" The gi'oves were God's first temples 
and lest his ancient people should forget that 
j their fathers had 



84 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



-= — -= under ojien sky adored 

The God that made — 

the moon's resplendent globe 

And starry pole," 

he himself ordained an annual memorial of this 
interesting period of their history, and for the 
eight days su<:ceeding the ingathering of the 
golden harvest, all Judea dwelt in tabernacles, 
and the court-yards, the squares, the level house- 
tops of the holy city were imbowered in mag- 
nificent green. The temple- worship of the 
Most High fills the devout soul with holy so- 
lemnity. There is a charm that is not of earth 
in massive, time-scathed walls, whose change- 
ful shadows enshroud the tale-telling tablets of 
mortality ; in Gothic portals and dim-lighted 
aisles ; in the airy prelude or full-voiced organ 
proclaiming, in sombre harmonies. 

The Lord is in his holy temple, 

Let all the earth keep silence before him !" 

There is a holier loveliness in worship under 
the light springing towers and roofs of the beau- 
tiful Grecian, whose dazzling whiteness is em- 
blematic of the purity of the services which 
give it sacredness, and whose clear panes allow 
free access to the transparent day ; where sim- 
plicity reigns, and a studied avoidance of time- 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



hallowed puerilities ; where the senses are not 
distracted, ^and the soul charmed away from 
God ; where the vocal anthem, the unfettered 
exhortation, and the free and impassioned prayer 
burst from hearts warm with love and deeply 
imbued with the pure and simple doctrines of 
the cross. Yet is there a higher charm, a love- 
liness more lovely, in the wild greenwood wor- 
ship of Him 

^' Wlio dwelleth not in temples made with hands." 

Instead of the deep-toned bell, the echoing horn 
summons the encamped hosts to their morning 
orisons and their public devotions ; the swelling 
organ and trained orchestra are wanting, but 
" sole or responsive," witching melodies float 
upon the air, or the loud hymn, bursting from a 
thousand voices, melting and commingling in 
one vast volume of harmony, sends up its ravish- 
ing strains. Formalities are waved, and spon- 
taneous effusions of praise and prayer are 
hourly ascending to the approving Being 

" Whose temple is the face of day." 

The site of the Pittstown camp was a sloping 
woodland of spreading beeches, leafy maples, 
golden-fringed chestnuts, and dark pines. Three 
rows of snowy tents inclosed a smooth and 



86 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



beautiful area, fitted up with rustic pulpit, altar, 
and seats, for the accommodation of the thou- 
sands congregated for worship within these 
sacred precincts. Scarcely had the first beams 
of the rising day gilded the forest and penetrated 
its opening vistas, ere the whole wood resound- 
ed with the morning devotions of the tented 
multitudes ; and with brief interruptions for re- 
pose and the participation of the pic-nic enter- 
tainments of the social board, the thronged 
shade was ringing from morn till midnight with 
the affectionate tones of warning, expostulation, 
or appeal, the joyous shout, the clear breaking 
response, the gush of hallowed song, and the 
loud voice of wrestling prayer. A love-feast 
under such circumstances has a wild interest ; 
the fires of pentecost descend, the inspiration 
flows from heart to heart, till tears rain down 
from every eye, and the shouts of thousands 
rise as the voice of many waters. To the Chris- 
tian it is a scene of surpassing loveliness ! a 
scene that savors of the future : for heaven is 
an open country, watered by the river of life, 
and shaded by fruit-bearing trees ; and though 
a holy calm, like the quiet of its own atmos- 
phere, may usually pervade the bosoms of its 
inhabitants, it is by no means an unbroken 
tranquillity. There are hours when its val- 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



S7 



leys and hilltops resound widi bursts of irre- 
pressible joy I 

when all 

The multitude of angels, with a shout, 
Loud as from numbers without number, sweet 
As from blest voices, uttering joy, heaven ring 
With jubilee, and loud hosannas fiU 
The eternal regions!" 

Why, then, should we utterly suppress the sa- 
cred flame on earth ! I wonder not that David 
danced with all his might before the ark of the 
Lord, or that to the apostles, under the first gush 
of holy inspiration, were attributed the conduct 
and language of frenzied bacchanals ! At times 
the soul feels 

" The speechless awe that dares not move, 
And all the silent heaven of love 

at Other moments its bounding impulses are 
bodied forth in the ecstatic strains of Isaiah : 

" Sing, O ye heavens ! for the Lord hath done it : 
Shout! ye lower parts of the earth! 
Break forth into singing, ye mountains ! 
O forest, and every tree therein !" 

The preaching at this camp-meeting partook 
of the same elevated, soul-reforming character 
with the other exercises. One of the best ser- 
mons of the occasion was preached by the for- 



88 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



mer presiding elder of the district, Rev. John 
B. Stratten, and is here mentioned because of 
its connection with the mental exercises of the 
subject of these sketches. As the able speaker 
introduced his theme, laid out his work with 
the skill of a master^ and proceeded with ra- 
pidity and power to its exposition : as argu- 
ment after argument was adduced, elucidated, 
and amplified ; as his views enlarged upon the 
hearer, and found firm lodgment in his enlight- 
ened understanding and consenting judgment ; 
and finally^ as he concentrated his luminous 
reasonings into a sweeping, irresistible, and 
soul-moving conclusion ; our licentiate, who 
had at every step of the discourse been draw- 
ing a painful parallel, or rather a mortifying 
contrast, between the speaker's powers and his 
own, yielded to despair, and descended from 
the stand with the desperate resolve quivering 
upon his lips, "never to attempt to preach 
again." He was rambling, downcast and sad, 
in pursuit of his colleague, to impart to him his 
resolution to return immediately home, when 
the venerable father Howe, affectionately pass- 
ing his arm about the neck of the desponding 
youth, exclaimed with fervor, " Was not that a 
lovely sermon ?" " Precious ! but inimitable I" 
sighed the disheartened novice, " Courage, 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



89 



my young brother !" resumed the apostolic ad- 
viser ; " I remember when, twenty years ago, 
the preacher was but a diffident youth, evident- 
ly studious, pious, and thoughtful ; yet no one 
thought he would ever make a preacher. It is 
related of him that on one occasion his col- 
league unexpectedly entered the room where 
he was discoursing, and that he was so discon- 
certed at his presence that he sat doAvn pale 
and trembling, and no persuasions could induce 
him to proceed ; and now," continued father 
Howe, " you see what a giant he has become ! 
Courage ! my brother, and you may in time be- 
come a good, if not a great preacher of the gos- 
pel." "I thanked father Howe," says Mr. 
Ryder, " for his seasonable encouragement, and 
resolved to try !" 



90 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



CHAPTER VII. 

And if it please thee, heavenly Guide, 

May never worse be sent ; 
But whether granted or denied, 

Lord bless us with content. Burns. 

The petition of the xiyrshire ploughman in- 
voluntarily escaped the lips of our itinerant as 
he entered the humble apartment in which he 
and his wife were to make their first essay at 
domestic life. It was a low, unfinished, and 
unfurnished cottage, shingled and clapboarded 
to be sure, but ceiling there was none, and joists 
and sleepers stood out uncovered in dark and 
unsightly array ; a huge stone chimney, be- 
grimed with smoke and dust, projected into 
the room most unsymmetrically ; the floor- 
boards creaked and clattered beneath the tread ; 
and through unnumbered chinks and crannies 
in the roof and walls streamed the rays of the 
cold moon and beaming stars by night, and 
lawless winds, driving rains, and insinuating 
snows, paid at times their intrusive visits. 
In this wretched habitation Mr. Ryder domi- 
ciliated during the first year of his probationary 
membership in the New- York Conference, and 
while he sojourned upon Wallingford circuit. 
Poor as the dwelling was, it was the best that 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



91 



could be procured in that section : the interests 
of the work required his immediate supervision, 
and he cheerfully submitted to temporary incon- 
veniences. To Mrs. Ryder, in particular, this 
was the happiest year of their itinerant life. 
She had left the abundance of a wealthy 
farmer's mansion for the stinted and irregularly- 
furnished disciplinary allowances ; yet they 
had enough for present necessities, and the 
richest can enjoy no more. She had left in- 
dulgent relatives ; yet their place was some- 
what supplied by kind neighbors and warm- 
hearted friends in every part of the charge : in 
winter the wide hearth was amply supplied 
w^ith fuel, and in summer they were in the midst 
of rural scenes and landscapes of unwonted love- 
liness. A cultivated valley opened to the south, 
on the west rose a lofty mountain, whose brow 
was alternately veiled in clouds, wreathed in 
circling mists, and bathed in the clear blue 
ether ; a pellucid streamlet, supplied by living 
tributaries, dripping and rilling out from the 
cold mossy crevices of the rocks, wound through 
the rich meadows and smooth pasture lands at 
its base ; and shrubbery of various character 
fringed its precipitous sides and rugged summit. 
Vigorous woodland growths, now clothed in 
summer gTeens, and now in the ever- changing 



92 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



hues and tints of autumnal drapery, mild orange 
and brilliant reds, dazzling vermilion and gor- 
geous purple and scarlet, added lustre to the 
prospect. Nor were moral and social attrac- 
tions wanting to give life and soul to natural 
beauties. The hearts of numbers were vivified 
with the genial influences of grace through the 
instrumentality of their youthful pastor, and nu- 
merous associations of a religious and friendly 
character are entwined with all his recollec- 
tions of this romantic spot. 

This year also was checkered with its little 
vicissitudes. These, however apparently in- 
significant or unattractive, bear their relative 
importance. The philosopher contemplates the 
fortuities of life and the developments of cha- 
racter alike in the revolutions of hamlets and 
the changes of dynasties ; and since He 

Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, 

A hero perish or a spaiix)w fall," 

extends his paternal regards to the slightest 
mischances of his intelligent creatures, shall 
man count those events trivial, or pass them by 
as unworthy his attention 1 Mr. Ryder's circuit 
embraced several towns lying upon the western 
slope of the Green Mountains. One of his ap- 
pointments in those elevated regions was at 
Cold River, a place which takes its name from 



THE SUPERAXXVATE, 



93 



a small stream of icy coldness, brawling along 
the bottom of a deep gorge, skirted by preci- 
pices, many of whose yawning crevices are the 
abodes of perpetual congelation. From this scat- 
tered hamlet of blood-curdling memor}- let us 
accompany our punctual itinerant, who having 
tarried for a night, is in the saddle by the dawn, 
and away to fulfil the series of appointments 
which make up the labors of the sacred day. 
It is a Sunday in December ; a depth of snow 
unusual even in these high latitudes mantles 
field, forest, and hill, and yet the darkened hea- 
vens shed down their fieecy treasures, as if os- 
tentatious of their inexhaustibleness. The air 
is filled with the whirling eddies, and the road 
obstructed by drifted heaps, through which wal- 
lows the steed of the determined circuiteer, im- 
til exhaustion succeeds to weariness, and the 
bufteted animal refuses to proceed. Landmarks 
were obliterated, and the horseman, laden with 
snow, chilled and blinded by the blast, was fain 
to dismount and crave the cheerfully-granted 
hospitalities of the nearest farm-house. For 
the first time in his brief ministerial career he 
had been bafiled in his endeavor to reach an 
appointment. Had he succeeded, his labor 
would have been vain, for the most regular at- 
tendants at the house of God looked out upon 



94 



THE SUPER AXXUATE, 



the iiowling wastes, ancl returned intimidated to 
the Bible and fireside worship. No one but the, 
follower of the indefatigable Wesley ventured 
abroad to dare the peltings of a storm so wild. 
For three entire days did the inexorable snows 
detain their impatient prisoner. On the fourth 
appeared a solitary traveler, dounderins; throusfh 
the imbroken drifts, seekinof the incarcerated 
" minister.'' and preferring the m'gent request 
that he should accompany him on a pastoral 
visitation to his house, several miles distant. 
He complied cheerfully, and they made their 
way with difficulty to the habitation of the peti- 
tioner. As ]\Ir. Ryder entered this abode of 
strangers, a tall, spare, thin-visaged female, with 
dark hair, and a complexion sallow by protract- 
ed disease, threw over his person a glance in 
which joy mingled with the wildness of insani- 
ty, and shrieked, That is the man I*' Staitled 
by this miexpected recognition from an appa- 
rently total stranger, his eyes involuntarily 
sought those of his abashed conductor for an 
explanation. It was his wife ; she was reputed 
insane. For months, perhaps for years, she i 
had labored under the most distressing appre- 
hensions respecting her present state and her fu- 
ture salvation. The opposite extremes of uncon- 
ditional salvation, Calviuism and Universalism, 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



95 



had been respectively brought to bear upon her 
case, but without effect : still writhing in the 
agony of conviction for sins unforgiven, she had 
sunk gradually into a state of despondency 
bordering upon settled monomania. Her case 
was explained to the preacher, as well as the 
singular circumstances that had led to his invi- 
tation to the domain in that inclement season. 
She had dreamed — no unusual occurrence — 
and, what is quite as common, while the senses 
slumbered, wakeful fancy had constructed the 
vision out of the materials of predominant and 
leading trains of waking thought. In imagina- 
tion she had stood upon a trembling bog, in the 
midst of an extensive quagmire. Advance and 
retreat were alike impossible : to step in any 
direction was to hazard ingulfment in the stag- 
nant slough. Far as the eye could reach, the 
treacherous surface vibrated under the weight 
of numbers of every age and sex in the same 
perilous predicament ; some conscious of their 
danger, others indifferent to exposure. Keenly 
sensible of her hazard, and alive to the imjDrac- 
ticability of escape, the dreamer, as dreamers 
are wont to do in like circumstances, shrieked 
for help. The cry aroused the attention of the 
occupants of the surrounding bogs, and singular 
enough was the commotion it excited. " You 



96 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



are in no danger !" cried one ; " the soil you 
stand on is as firm as the rocks of the primitive 
foundation." " You are in imminent peril !" 
shouted another, " but if you will trust to my 
guidance, I will conduct you to a place of safe- 
ty and forthwith stepping from his precarious 
foothold, he instantly sunk out of view in the 
turbid mire. "Don't make such an outcry!" 
vociferated a third, " we are in danger it is true ; 
but since there is no prospect of escape, let us 
enjoy ourselves as we can and he fell to ca- 
pering to that degree that the faithless support 
gave way, and the slimy mass settled sluggishly 
over the spot where he disappeared. Vain were 
it to attempt to recount the disasters she wit- 
nessed, or to repeat the fruitless directions 
showered upon her from every quarter : her 
distress was every moment augmented, until 
agony amounted to desperation, and again she 
cried aloud for help. At this instant, firm 
land appeared at no great distance before her ; 
she wondered she had not seen it before : upon 
it stood a stranger, beckoning her from turbu- 
lent hazard to tranquil security ; and he pointed 
out a series of stepping stones, — strange that 
they had not sooner attracted her attention,— 
by the careful use of which she was extricated 
from peril, and safely conducted to a firm foun- 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



97 



dation. Her deliverer had vanished ; but she 
woke with his form, features, dress, and man- 
ner firmly imprinted upon her mind, and with 
the strange and undefinable impression that the 
man was at no great distance who could instru- 
mentally liberate her from her present agonized 
and deranged state of mind. The tender anx- 
iety of her husband had led to the indefinite 
search and its fortunate results. More need 
not be added, save that in an hour the woman 
was happily converted ; and when Mr. Ryder 
last saw her, a year after the blissful change, 
she was in full health both of mind and body, 
and was joyfully making her way with her 
companion toward heaven. 

Mount Holly was the scene of a trifling ad- 
venture. Spring was far advanced, the farmers 
were ploughing and sowing the plains, and this 
lofty region was yet buried in snow. The roa<i 
was glazed with ice, and passing in wheel car- 
riages was particularly dangerous. Along this 
necessary route to his appointments the preacher 
was leisurely journeying with his wife, when 
the vehicle began to slide diagonally down the 
rapid declivity with manifest symptoms of an 
overturn. Deprecating so undesirable an event, 
Mrs. Ryder sprang from the carriage, and went 
I sailing upon the glassy surface to the foot of 



98 



THE SUFERANNUATE. 



the hill, to the infinite amusement of her hus- 
band, while the horse, setting a foot through 
the lid of the wicker basket she had dropped in 
her descent, pranced after her with the osier 
cabinet dangling from his hoof, and scattering 
the endless paraphernalia of the toilet and work- 
table in beautiful confusion. 

A ludicrous incident occurred at one of Mr. 
Ryder's appointments during the following sum- 
mer. Religious w^orship, under any circum- 
stances, is peculiarly solemn ; and yet instances 
are upon record where grave and devout men 
have been irresistibly provoked to smile upon 
occasions the most serious. In the present in- 
stance, nothing but the sacredness of the day 
and its ser^dces, restraining the feelings with 
more than hydi'ostatic pressure, prevented an 
outbreak of clamorous merriment. The preacher 
was holding forth to a numerous auditory in a 
countr}^ school -house. He was in full view of 
the outer door, about which the males of the 
congregation were principally gathered, and 
upon the sill of which, under the burning beams 
of a July sun, sat a huge disciple of Vulcan, 
who, overpowered by the heat, the tediousness 
of the sermon, or constitutional dullness, was 
pertinaciously exhibiting, in frequent and sud- 
den collapses of the eyelids, and inclinations of 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



99 



his thick but flexile neck, all those mirth-pro- 
voking indications of a conflict between the 
desire for wakefulness and the stealing mes- 
meric influences inclining to drowsiness and 
slumber. A pet lamb, that had followed its 
owner to the place of meeting, mistook these 
involimtary gesticulations for a provocation to 
fight, and readily accepted a challenge so fre- 
quently reiterated. The man repeated his sig- 
nals, and the chivalrous sheep began to show 
battle ; he shook his head, reared and plunged, 
and ran backward for a fair start ; another ear- 
nest nutation from him of the forge and bel- 
lows, and the woolly combatant ran at full tilt, 
dealing with his hard head and sprouting horns 
a ringing blow upon the skull of the smith, like 
the stroke of a sledge upon his own anvil I He 
sprang up and roared like a spitted cyclop ! The 
sheep fled in amazement, and an ill-suppressed 
titter ran through the congregation. Even the 
preacher was forced to bite his lips, for busy 
association brought to his recollection another 
incident that he witnessed, and that has excited 
his risible s as often as he has thought of the 
circumstance. He was once at a quarterly 
meeting held in a large barn upon the banks of 
the Hudson. At the rear end of the main floor, 
and directly against the folding doors, was erect- 



iOO 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



ed a temporary rostrum, upon which were ele- 
vated the presiding elder and several preachers, 
seated upon a rough bench prepared for the oc- 
casion. In the midst of a discourse by one of 
the elders, a rude seat gave way upon the barn 
floor, and the necessary scramble among the 
prostrate occupants occasioned no little mirth 
among the younger portion of the congTegation, 
which was most grotesquely scattered in the 
bays and stables, and upon the beams and scaf- 
folds of the spacious edifice. To check this 
ill-timed levity, the presiding elder rose and 
said, with great solemnity, that " such conduct 
was unbecoming in the worshipers of God, and 
that it was well for such careless sinners that 
they had not all fallen into hell !" This digni- 
tary weighed at least ten-score, and as he re- 
sumed his seat the coarse bench crushed be- 
neath its burden, the fastenings of the folding 
doors, against which they had unguardedly 
leaned, gave way under the united momentum ; 
and bench, presiding elder, preachers and all, 
turning ludicrous summersets, tumbled helter- 
skelter into the adjoining barn-yard ! 

Upon the circuit duties of this year it is un- 
necessary to enlarge. To Mr. Ryder it was a 
profitable as well as laborious probation. His 
indefatigable colleague, the Rev. Joshua Poor, 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



101 



held protracted meetings at every principal ap- 
pointment of their extensive charge. Arduous 
as were the labors of the assistant preacher, his 
peace was like a river, and his zeal for God 
and souls unabated. Nor can he withhold the 
grateful acknowledgment that his associations 
with his senior were of the most instructive 
character. ' By frequent intercourse, gentle 
checks, and kindly suggestions, the preacher in 
charge sought to mold and modify, in many 
points, the character of his junior ; to stimulate 
deficiencies and lop excrescences in his pulpit 
and pastoral manners, and to imbue them with 
a portion of the blandness that so strongly cha- 
racterizes his own : he directed his private 
studies, and taught him by example as well as 
by precept the lesson so important in our inter- 
course Avith mankind, that men are usually more 
. easily led than driven. At Wallingford village, 
an event of the most tragic character paved the 
way for good to the actors in the scene, through 
the instrumentality and joint labors of the two 
colleagues. Here, as in every other community, 
occurred outrages upon right and propriety of 
such character as could not be directly reached 
by civil process ; and here, in a little, quiet, re- 
mote hamlet of moral Vermont, was practiced 
that species of summary and off-hand justice, 



102 



THE STJPERAXNUATE. 



denominated " Lynch law" in the turbulent 
south. The subject was a man suspected of 
incest ; the enactors, half a score of giddy and 
daring young men. Under the cover of dark- 
ness they proceeded to the log hut of the victim 
of their reprehensible designs, forced the door 
from its rude fastenings, intending to become 
the equeries of the occupant while he exhibited 
his equestrian powers upon the edge of a rail. 
Forewarned of their kindly intentions, the pro- 
prietor of the cabin had prepared his weapons, 
and bade them defiance. One of the most reso- 
lute of the youths approached the bed, a brief 
struggle ensued in the darkness ; it was mo- 
mentary ; the savage defendant plucked a huge 
butcher-knife from a crevice in the logs, and 
plunged it up to the haft in the breast of his 
youthful assailant ! A heavy fall and a stifled 
groan announced to his companions the disas- 
trous termination of their pastime, while the 
exulting murderer called out to them to " come 
on ; he had killed one ; his gim was at hand ; 
ball and bayonet were both in readiness, and 
blood was the only price at which he would 
sell himself to lawless and untimely abuse." 
Uncertain of the fate of their comrade, and full 
of painful conjecture, the intimidated youths 
withdrew from the premises and alarmed the 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 103 

neighborhood. Morning revealed an awful 
spectacle to the numerous visitors to the dilapi- 
dated cabin ! The ghastly form of the unfortu- 
nate young man, the bloody weapon, the stained 
floor of the mean apartment, the aperture through 
which, by the removal of a loose board, the 
perpetrator escaped naked to the adjacent moun- 
tain, were so many objects of horror or of dis- 
mal curiosity. Three weeks after, the homi- 
cide was discovered by a hunter in the woods 
of a neighboring township, and soon after ap- 
prehended. A haggard and emaciated counte- 
nance, uncropped hair and beard, with a dress 
of rye straw, girded about his middle with a 
band of the same coarse material, gave him an 
aspect at once primitive and terrible. He was 
tried and acquitted ; the young men were ap- 
prehended, found guilty of a breach of the peace, 
heavily fined and imprisoned. For those who 
were unable to meet the claims of justice, our 
two preachers interested themselves, appealed 
to the sympathies of the inhabitants of Walling- 
ford from door to door, and in one day the requi- 
site amount was raised for their liberation and 
restoration to their family and social relations. 
Nor did the labors of the successors of the 
prison-visiting Wesley end with this act of un- 
solicited kindness ; they labored with these un- 



104 



THE SUPERAX.XUATE. 



happy youths as guilty sinners, and had the 
pleasure of seeing several of them so lay to 
heart this awful providence, as to turn with true 
penitence and successful faith to the living 
God. 

In the exercise of his pastoral functions, those 
primary" and indispensable elements of clerical 
usefulness, the junior preacher witnessed the 
beneficial effects of *' a word fitly spoken" in 
the conviction and conversion of an interesting 
young lady. She had recently participated in 
the sabbath excursion of a party of pleasure to 
the summit of the Dorset }»Iountain, one of those 
romantic green hills, that, wdth their attendant 
valleys, constitute a principal feature in the far- 
famed pictnresqueness of central Yermont. She 
described with intelligent animation the circuit- 
ous sweep of the fair riders and their gallants 
up the winding and wooded slope; their visit 
to the yawning and fathomless chasm that opens 
from the summit into the bowels of the moun- 
tain ; the mingled delight and awe with which 
they listened to the stones thrown into the abyss, 
nunbling in their descent against the echoing 
walls of this unexplored route to subterra- 
nean worlds, imtil sound and reverberation were 
lost in distance : the lovely -views from this ele- 
vated point — on the one hand, the blue peaks of 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



105 



the distant " Haystack," and the remoter Birds- 
eye ;" on the other, the far-reaching valley of 
the Batenkill, imbosomed in its magnificent am- 
phitheatre of purple hills, and presenting, in 
Lilliputian perspective, lawns and woodlands 
alternating with villages and rural seats ; and, 
finally, the pic-nic collation of the party, par- 
taken upon a little esplanade, canopied by the 
spreading branches of a mountain maple, and 
flavored by delicious, thirst-allapng draughts 
from a cool mountain spring. And all this," 
said the pastor with deliberate solemnity, as the 
fair speaker concluded her glo\^dng description, 
all this upon the holy sabbath day !" The 
word was an arrow winged by the convicting 
Spirit: she burst into tears, and shortly after 
gave her heart to the God of the sacred day. 

But one other event of common interest hap- 
pened to Mr. Ryder during the current confer- 
ence year. The 12th of January, 1832, must 
be considered memorable in his history as the 
birth-day of those pains and agonies that have 
since rendered him as distinguished in the world 
of sufiering as some of his honored contempo- 
raries have become in the world of action. He 
was proceeding to an appointment on horseback, 
and at a short distance from Wallingford village 
was seized with an acute pain in the right hip 



106 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



joint ; sharp, shooting, severe, and constant, so 
that he could not dismount without aid. Bro- 
ther Poor kindly procured him a sleigh, and he 
reached the church at East Wallingford in due 
season. The night was dark, cold, and stormy. 
After securing his horse to the shed, he at- 
tempted to walk to the church, a few rods dis- 
tant, but fell in agony upon the snow, crept to 
the door upon his hands and knees, aroused 
those within, was assisted to a place by the 
fire, and finally stood up in a pew and preached 
to the handful that had gathered for worship. 
From thence he betook himself to his bed, and 
the usual external applications for rheumatism : 
the disease appeared to yield to the treatment, 
its violence gradually diminished, and in ten 
days every sensible trace of it had disappeared. 



THE SUPERANNUATE, 



107 



CHAPTER YIII. 

Yet through the wilderness 

Cheerful we stray ; 
Native land — native land — 

Home far away. 

George Lunt. 

If life were slumber, on a bed of down, 
Toil unimposed — ^vicissitude unknown, 
Sad were our lot. 

Wordsworth. 

The itinerant is a pilgrim. From home and 
its joys he is comparatively an exile. In obe- 
dience to the requisitions of that policy to which 
for the good of souls he has yielded so large a 
portion of his personal rights, he is ever a so- 
journer in the abodes of strangers, a dependent 
upon precarious or capricious hospitality. Yet 
who so cheerful as the itinerant ! Social and 
domestic privations at which other men would 
repine, he endures without a murmur. " La- 
bors," "joumeyings," "perils of waters," "perils 
in the wilderness," " perils in the sea," "perils 
among false brethren," " weariness and painful- 
ness," " watchings often," " hunger and thirst," 
" fastings often," " cold and nakedness," were 
the portion of a traveling preacher of olden 
time ; yet bliss was mingled in the cup, and the 



108 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



record of his experience, given to the world by 
his own master-hand, presents the rare and pa« 
radoxical spectacle of a man " sorrowful, yet 
always rejoicing," "poor, yet making many 
rich," " having nothing, and yet possessing all 
things." Our own annals teem with illustrious 
examples of joy in the midst of self-sacrifice » 
How touching the picture drawn by Fisk, the 
world-honored savant, of Fisk, the beardless 
itinerant, " threading a pathless forest among 
the Green Mountains, bordering upon the Ca- 
nada line, driving his horse before him because 
of the roughness of the wilderness, cheerful as 
an angel on an errand of mercy," and pouring 
forth a " song with which he made the rugged 
mountain tops that hung over his path reverbe- 
rate," — 

No foot of land do I possess, 
No cottage in this wilderness, 

A poor way-faring man. 
I lodge awhile in tents below, 
Or gladly wander to and fro, 

Till I my Canaan gain. 

" Nothing on earth I call my own, 
A stranger, to the world unknown, 

I all their goods despise ; 
I trample on their whole delight, 
And seek a city out of sight, 

A city in th© skies/' 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



109 



With similar, if humbler feelings did William 
Ryder, by the direction of the New-York Con- 
ference, wend his way with, his little all of 
earthly gear to an untried field of labor ; and 
the evening of the 4th of July, 1832, beheld 
him again in the midst of strangers, duly in- 
stalled preacher in charge, and located in the 
age-stricken parsonage of Leicester circuit. 
Rev. John Alley was his colleague ; Goshen, 
upon the Green Mountain, Brandon, Leicester, 
and Salisbury, in the valley of the Otter Creek, 
Whiting, Sudbury, and Hubbardton, upon the 
hills ranging its western border, together with 
Shoreham, Orwell, and Bridport, upon the east- 
ern shore of Champlain, constituted their ex- 
tensive and laborious charge ; a charge that has 
since been so prospered and subdivided as to 
require and requite the services of nine efficient 
members of the Troy Annual Conference. This 
was a long year ; a year of trial and peculiar 
suffering ; a year of severe though monotonous 
labor, a dead level in a life of invariable uni- 
formity, and as barren of incident as the years 
already described. Thrice upon the sabbath, 
and every eA^ening of the week, did these young 
and ardent heralds of the cross proclaim salva- 
tion, " full and free," to gathered multitudes in 
different and distant appointments. The ex- 



110 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



tremes of a capricious climate were fearlessly 
braved ; church difficulties were reconciled, 
and a pastoral care as efficient as possible was 
exercised over their widely-scattered flock. In 
discharging the duties of the responsible office 
with which he was now invested, the superin- 
tendent of the circuit found frequent use for that 
peculiar tact which, more than anything else, 
marks the successful governor. A single in- 
stance we record, the application of which 
might be extended to several of our contempo- 
raries with peculiar propriety. One of those 
discontented spirits which infest all ecclesiasti- 
cal establishments, propounded his intention to 
withdraw from the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
because things were not conducted in all re- 
spects in accordance with his particular views. 
" Let me first tell you a story, brother," said 
the preacher : " I was once in company with 
old father Haight and his daughter, crossing 
Lake George in a skiff. When in the middle 
of the sheet a sudden flaw sprang up, and the 
light canoe danced merrily over the white caps, 
which, though they rolled high, threatened dan- 
ger to none but the unskillful. At this instant 
the terrified maid sprang up with the manifest 
risk of overturning our little tossing bark, and 
shrieked loudly, ' I'll jump out ! I'll jump out !' 



THE SUPERANNUATE. Ill 

* Sit down, Polly !' thundered the old man, 
' where would you jump ? Sit down, I say 
The frantic girl, fearing her stern father more 
than the raging elements, obeyed ; and with a 
few vigorous strokes of the paddles we were 
out of danger." The malcontent went away 
smiling, and remained in the church. 

At Orwell Mr. Ryder accepted an invitation 
to a fishing excursion on Lake Champlain, in 
company with the proprietor of the boat, his 
son, and a hired serving man. The latter was 
disgustingly profane, and with a bravado by no 
means uncommon to persons of this class, took 
pains to mortify his master by showing off his 
powers of blasphemy in presence of the min- 
ister." Watching a suitable opportunity as they 
sailed in quest of a fishing gTOimd, the preacher 
made a familiar anecdote the means of whole- 
some and corrective reproof to the indulger of 
this profitless habit. " Did you ever hear of a 
fish being taken without bait ?" " No," replied 
the man with an oath. And what would you 
think of the fish that would jump at the naked 
hook ?" That he was a fool !" with another 
oath. Just so foolish," said the preacher, "is 
the profane swearer. Other sinners the devil 
tempts with various and delicious baits, to the 
swearer he throws the bare hook ; for he knows 



112 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



that it will be greedily gorged !" The man was 
silent, and the three received religious impres- 
sions which, strengthened and fostered by sub- 
sequent influences, eventuated in their conver- 
sion to God. 

" Are you and your colleague liberally edu- 
cated ?" inquired a Puritan of the old school of 
brother Alley. This man was fondly wedded 
to the once prevalent idea that collegiate train- 
ing is indispensable to the exercise of the func- 
tions of the sacred office. '-'Pretty liberally! 
pretty liberally 1'* replied brother Alley, with a 
smile in which characteristic archness and sar- 
casm struggled for predominance : and the old 
man became a devout listener to the preaching 
of the young men, with the pious persuasion 
that each dated his credentials from a college 
or theological seminar}'. 

One of the most painful duties of the Chris- 
tian minister is to stand by the bedside of the 
dying unregenerate. Yet is the anguish of the 
task alleviated, if in the hour of mortal agony 
he becomes the instrument of salvation to him 
who has postponed repentance until the desti- 
nies of an opening eternity tremble on the deci- 
sions of a moment. The senior preacher was 
this year suddenly summoned to the death-bed 
of the subject of one of those awful casualties 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 113 

that paralyze the nerves and send the life-cur- 
rent curdling to its fountain. A pedler had 
been overturned and crushed beneath the heavy- 
boxes of goods with which his wagon was 
laden. His neck was broken, and the entire 
body below that organ was utterly devoid of 
sensibility and motion. The pulsations of the 
heart and wrist were flitting and scarcely dis- 
cernible, and the extremities, already dead, 
rapidly assumed the appalling rigidity and cold- 
ness of dissolution. The head lived, and evi- 
denced to the bystanders a power and activity 
of thought truly astonishing. His little tempo- 
ralities were calmly disposed of, a tender com- 
mission dispatched to his wife and child, thus 
suddenly bereft of their main earthly dependence, 
and the remainder, and by far the greater part 
of liis lingering moments, were devoted to pre-, 
paration for those awful scenes which the 
rapidly -rising curtain would soon let in upon his 
vision for ever. He had been a professor of 
religion, and a member of the Baptist commu- 
nion, but had lost his peace with God, and he 
felt unprepared to die. The struggle of the 
backslidden heart after repentance, faith, and its 
first love, was severe, but brief : he again 
eme/ged into the light and liberty of the gospel. 
The door of mortality receded upon its hinges, 
8 



114 



THE StrPEItANNtTATir. 



and the freed spirit fled from its earthly taber-^ 
nacle to the portals of the "house not made 
with hands.'^ The &ceiie was alFeeting and 
impressive, full of instruction and spiritual profit. 

In the prosecution of his determination never 
to fail in his appofintmentgy Mr, Ryder twice 
forded Otter Creek at times when the passage 
of the stream had been proiKmnced by compe- 
tent judges peculiarly dangerous, if not imprac- 
ticable. At the season of the fall rains he was 
fulfilling his w^estem roniid ot appointments^ and 
the swollen current interposed a barrier between 
him and his home. Bridges there were^ but on 
these extensive fiats, the causeways leading to 
them were flooded for many rods, impeded by 
floating timber, and rendered particularly dan- 
gerous by currents branching out from the main 
stream, gullying the roads and bearing down all 
obstacles, into this turbid sea plunged the 
fearless circuiteer with his vehicle, and reached 
in safety the bridge, which reared itself above 
the whirling floods like the back of a submerged 
elephant. The scene from the summit of this 
rustic arch defies the power of painting. There 
is grandeur in the rush of this beautiful stream, 
when, augmented to the size of the Hudson or 
Mississippi, by the torrents which every gi-een 
hill lavishes, it proudly bears the generous tri- 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



115 



bute to the bosom of the Champlain ! As the 
circuit-rider descended from the bridge, his 
strong horse lost his foothold in the increasing 
depth, and the hurrying waters swept the ve- 
hicle downward until the wheels clinked upon 
the stones of the buttress upon which rested 
the causeway, and over which had they plunged 
destruction must have been inevitable. Skillful 
guidance and the exertions of the generous ani" 
mal soon placed his grateful master beyond the 
reach of danger. 

In the following spring fields of ice blocked 
up one of these causeways, and Mr. Ryder, in 
attempting to find the passage to the bridge by 
a circuitous route along the submerged banks 
of the stream, fell into its bed, and without a 
moment's hesitation turned the head of his horse 
toward the opposite shore. Powerfully did the 

|i noble animal he bestrode buffet the dark eddy- 
ing waters, and proudly did he toss his bridle 
in acknowledgment of the congratulations of his 
master, whom he had once more rescued from 

;i rapid vortices and angry floods. This fine 
steed, sagacious as a spaniel, was the insepa- 
rable companion of our preacher during the 

I whole period of his itinerancy. When in good 
ij temper, he was in truth a princely horse, but 

II he had been badly broken, and to keep him in 



116 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



proper subjection cost his owner some severe 
contests, for which he received a kindly reproof 
from brother Poor. He replied, " Sir, no man 
loves his horse better than I do ; but I cannot 
consent to ride my master about the circuit !" 

To Vermont belongs the honor of having 
given to the Methodist Episcopal Church two 
of its chief ornaments. Above its horizon have 
risen two stars of the first magnitude : the one 
has gone down upon the world to dawn on a 
holier sphere : the lustre of the other gilds the 
heavens in which it lingers, and is discerned 
from the sister continent. Fisk and Olin! sons 
of the Green Mountains ! the fearless defenders 
of Arminio-Wesleyan theology ; the advocates 
of a catholic system of church polity ; the pio- 
neers of education in the church of their choice, 
and about to be known to posterity as the first 
presidents of the distinguished University 
which owes its existence to their efibrts and 
prayers. Leicester was the birth-place of the 
latter. While president of Randolph Macon 
College, he visited the place of his nativity, and, 
in company with his wife, whom Dr. Sewall 
might well denominate " a lovely woman," 
honored our humble itinerant with a visit, which 
left a most agreeable impression upon his mind, 
saddened at this moment by the recollection 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



117 



that the charming impersonation of female ex- 
cellence, who constituted the central attraction 
of that and similar interviews, lies in a land of 
strangers. Here lired and died Judge Olin, 
the honored father of tliis av ell-known family, a 
giant in stature, a man of worth and wisdom, 
full of apothegm and instructive anecdote, the 
stern and uncompromising foe of all infringe- 
ments of social order and personal rights, and 
an umpire in neighborhood controversies to 
whom all parties confidently applied, and from 
whose decisions none felt at liberty to appeal. 
" I educated Stephen," said the old gentleman 
to i\Ir. Ryder, with a truant smile playing upon 
all the features of his grave countenance, in 
the expectation that he would become a distin- 
guished civilian, but he has turned out only a 
Methodist preacher !" Such society was equally 
pleasiu*able and profitable to our youthful itine- 
rant, alike stimulating to his social, moral, and 
mental powers, and alleviating to the physical 
suffering of which he became from this year 
the permanent object. 

In the January of 1833, exactly one year from 
the time of its first appearance, did this foe to 
his future peace make its second onset in the 
same precise locality, the joint of the right hip. 
After ten daj-s it passed into the left hip, and 



118 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



within three weeks located itself in the stomach, 
producing at each of these points pains the most 
exquisite, rapid as lightning and keen as the 
severest toothache." These were attended by 
a spasmodic cough: their subject was bowed 
together, and his every appearance indicated to 
his alarmed friends the rapid and certain ap- 
proaches of consumption. The excitement of 
a camp-meeting, held in Tinmouth during the 
summer, afforded a week's respite from these 
agonies, and at its close they returned with re- 
doubled fury. The neck was the next object 
of attack, and its flexibility was for ever de- 
stroyed. At the end of June he took to his bed 
and called a physician, who pronounced the dis- 
ease acute rheumatism,'' prescribed " cohosh, 
gum g^vack, brandy and brihistone," and con- 
finement in a room ten feet square during the 
whole of a burning July. The patient was like 
to have gone mad I A blister applied to the 
neck, in opposition to the wishes of his medical 
adviser, afforded immediate relief. He dis- 
missed the doctor, left his cell and the fiery 
compounds, and made the tour of his circuit, to 
finish up its business and prepare for his de- 
parture to a new field of labor. On the 1st of 
August the disease exhibited itself in the right 
knee ; nor did it abate a jot of its virulence else- 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



119 



where. Unable to wear a hat or to ride in a 
sitting posture, he resigned the reins to his wife, 
then, like himself, though in less degree, an in- 
valid, and set off for the general rallying point 
of interest and attendance, the annual confer- 
ence. 



120 



THE SUPERANNUATE, 



CHAPTER IX. 

The Lord gave the word : 

Grreat was the company of preachers. 

Psalmist. 

Let no man ti-ust on blind prosperitee. 

Chaucer. 

My herte is ground to blede in hevinesse^ 
The thought, receit* of wo and of complaint, 
The brest is chest of dolet and drerinesse ; 
The body eket so feeble and so faint, 
With hote and colde §mine axes is so mainte, 
That now I ehiver for defaut of heat, 
And hote as glede,l[ now sodainly I sweat. 

Complaint of the Black Knight. 

The Troy Conference, erected by the Gene- 
ral Conference of 1832, held its first annual ses- 
sion in August of the following year, in the 
small but lovely city from which it derived its 
classic appellation. To our invalid, the jour- 
ney thither in the public stage-coach was diffi- 
cult and painful in the last degree, and subse- 
quent circumstances conspired to aggravate his 
distress. The sittings of the committee who 
conducted the examination of the candidates for 
orders were tedious ; the basement of the State- 

* Receptacle, t Grief, t Also. J My pains are so 
mingled. || A burning coal. 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



121 



Street chapel, in which they assembled, was 
damp and uncomfortable ; the startling din of 
the fire-alarm twice called him from his bed to 
hazardous exposure from the night air ; and, 
finally, curiosity to hear the eccentric cosmopo- 
litan, Lorenzo Dow, led him to the hill east of 
the city, where he stood upon the wet grass un- 
til his limbs were ready to burst with agony. 
At the conclusion of the lengthy services he at- 
tempted to return to his boarding place, but was 
forced, before he had progressed half the length 
of one street, to sit down and remove the boot 
and stocking which incased the right limb. 
The foot was frightfully swollen, the veins were 
distended, and the tense skin had assumed a 
hue of appalling lividness. From the midst of 
a crowd of sympathizing passengers, he was 
borne to his temporary home by two benevolent 
strangers, who, though apparently poor men, 
declined the proffered recompense with tears. 
By the kindness of the stationed preacher he 
was removed to State-street, lodged with the 
sexton in the rear of the church, carefully 
tended, and enabled to be present at the daily 
sessions of the assembled body. To a novice, 
an annual conference presents a scene of no 
ordinary interest. It is our duty to record the 
impressions here made upon the mind of our 



122 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



suffering subject. The number of preachers, the ■ 
greatness of their business, the statesman-like ' 
manner of its execution, the talent exhibited in I 
preaching and debate, the Nestor-like gravity 
and wisdom of the elders, and the dignified 
cheerfulness and activity of the younger mem- 
bers, their deep devotion to the cause of God, 
and sense of responsibility to the chiurch, whose - 
interests were committed to their trust, were 
among the points which arrested the attention 
and engaged the thoughts of the subject of these 
sketches. In the legal examination of charac- 
ter he was struck w^ith the predominance of the 
godlike attributes, tenderness and severity; ten- 
derness toward inexperience and remissible de- 
ficiencies, preserving a high regard for reputa- 
tion, and exercising a commendable leniency 
toward penitent offenders : severity-, not merely i 
with respect to the incorrigible, but even in the 
treatment of those whose lives or teachings 
tended in any degree to depress the lofty stand- 
ard of ministerial purity and holy living erected 
for his co-laborers and successors by the irre- i 
proachable Wesley. Of one incident he retains | 
to this hour a vivid recollection. Having one i 
morning entered the conference at an advanced ■ 
stage of the proceedings, he obser\^ed, as he ' 
dragged himself with difficulty to his usual seat i 



) 
J 

I 



THE SUPER AX NU ATE > 



123 



without "the bar" separating the members of 
the body from those who had no legal partici- 
pation in its doings, that the ordinary business 
was suspended : every preacher was in the at- 
titude of an eager and attentive listener, breath- 
less stillness pervaded the audience, and tears 
were trickling down many faces. A man of 
slender make, thin, pale countenance, and beam- 
ing eye, with a feeble voice, yet musical and 
distinct, was speaking from the altar. It was 
Bishop Emory. He was taking his farewell of 
the conference for- a south-western tour of two 
thousand miles upon horseback ! The preachers 
rose to a man as he departed, to testify their 
sense of his intrinsic worth, as well as their 
respect for the holy office with which he had 
just been invested by the suffi-ages of their re- 
presentatives. It was the first and the last that 
our licentiate saw of Emor}-, the man that had 
conversed face to face with Clarke, and Watson, 
1 and their distinguished contemporaries, some 
i of whom had held personal communion with the 
^ venerable founder of the Wesley an body. Once 
again he appeared at the Troy Conference, and 
presided at its deliberations. It was the last 
he ever attended. A few months after, he was 
called to his reward by that awful pro^ddence 
which spread a gloom over the entire connec- 



124 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



tion. On the following sabbath Mr. Ryder was 
ordained a deacon by the apostolic Hedding; 
and truly, short of the laying on of the hands of 
Paul, the "authority to preach the word" could 
not have come to orn* subject from anymore 
satisfactory source. The concluding act of the 
conference is the "reading out" of the ap- 
pointments of the preachers. It is a moment 
of anxious solicitude when the superintendent 
rises to unfold 

Fatoriim arcana," 

The mystic rolls of fate," 

and to assign to every man his field of labor for 
the coming year. " Ticonderoga — William 
Ryder," said the " Minutes." The conference 
adjourned, and he was preparing to obey with 
cheerfulness the voice of the constituted au- 
thorities. " How do you like your appoint- 
ment?" inquired brother Poor, as he entered 
Mr. Ryder's lodgings on the following morning 
and kindly assisted him to dress ; for, it may 
be here remarked, he had not for months been 
able to put on and off his garments without as- 
sistance. " Very well, brother Poor ; yet I 
cannot help thinking that that cold mountainous 
region, its proximity to the lake, the extensive- 
ness of the charge, and the weight of its re- 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



125 



sponsibilities, will have a prejudicial effect on 
my already wretched health. Indeed, sir, I 
expect to lay my bones upon old • Ti ' circuit 
before the conclusion of the year,'* Brother 
Poor was silent, and they proceeded together, 
at the invalid's slow pace, toward the office of 
the northern stages, " The bishop boards here," 
said brother Poor, pausing before a door in 
Third-street, ^' I have a little business with him, 
and will overtake you directly." In brief time 
his mission of benevolence v/as accomplished : 
the minutes of the superintendent were altered, 
and Mr. Ryder was directed to proceed to 
Salisbury, a few miles only from his recent 
residence, and a part of his former charge, from 
which a petition had come to the conference 
requesting his appointment among them as sta- 
tioned preacher for the ensuing year. Here 
he labored for six months only; visited little, 
improved his confinement by severe application 
to study, preached thrice on the sabbath to an 
intelligent audience ; souls were converted, 
saints edified. When he could no longer walk, 
he was carried to the house of worship by his 
affectionate parishioners ; and when not able to 
stand, they earnestly entreated him to preach to 
them sitting in an elevated chair. His physi- 
cians advised repose, and he desisted. 



126 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



Few incidents occurred worthy of note during 
his residence in Salisbmy. There was one of 
the serio-ludicrous cast. The little son of a 
Canadian Frenchman had been drowned in 
Lake Dunmore, and Mr. Ryder, a total stranger 
to the parties, was called suddenly to preach a 
funeral discourse to a small audience assembled 
in a convenient hall adjacent to the bar-room of 
the village inn. Near the conclusion of the 
sermon, a rough4ooking man, with a "face of 
drunken wisdom," left the house, which the 
preacher took for an indication that he was 
wearying his auditors, and began, according to 
a prevalent, but perhaps useless custom, to make 
a random application of his remarks " to the 
moumers,^^ when an honest clown cried out 
that there was but "one mourner, and he was 
gone to the tavern for a dram !" 

In this vicinity, and during this year, if Mr. 
Ryder recollects rightly, occuri'ed one of those 
rare outrages upon propriety and decency never 
ventured upon by men until so hardened that 
they can fearlessly browbeat public opinion, and 
unblushingly set at naught all respect for the 
rights of the living and the memories of the 
dead. A woman had buried her husband ; and 
within a few weeks a neighbor of hers was de- 
positing the remains of his wife in the same 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



127 



grave-yard. When the funeral rites were con- 
cluded, the widower gallanted the recent widow 
to the head of the newly-filled grave ; they 
joined hands, and a justice of the peace, stand- 
ing at its foot, pronounced them, by the authori- 
ty of the state of Vermont, husband and wife ! 

With the conclusion of his labors upon this 
charge, Mr. Ryder, as subsequent events showed, 
conckided his toils as a public hierophant of the 
" mystery of godliness True, those labors were 
as yet hardly commenced, the novitiate had not 
yet expired, he had not yet graduated to the 
office and order of elder : in the midst of a suc- 
cessful preparation for usefulness rather than of 
usefulness itself, he was arrested by a mysteri- 
ous providence, and consigned to inacti-vdty and 
comparative oblivion. In taking leave of his 
brief career as a preacher, we have few remarks 
to offer. From a variety of sources we learn 
that, though young in the calling, he was rapidly 
rising in the esteem of his brethren in the minis- 
try, as well as in the affections of a discerning 
people : his prospects were as fair as those of 
any of his contemporaries of the same grade of 
talent and education ; his opportunities were as 
good and his improvement of them as faithful : but 
while they rise to relative distinction he is cut 
off and condemned to witness the entombing of 



128 



THE SUPERANNUATE- 



every earthly prospect. He is, however, con- 
soled by the reflection, that slight as were his 
abilities, they were always exerted to the ut- 
most in the cause which he labored to promote. 
The Bible and its exegesis, a retentive memorv^, 
a fund of words and natural illustrations, good 
perceptive powers and strong lungs, were his 
weapons : Christ crucified" was his constant 
theme : he always set before his audiences the 
best in his power. He had no " sugar sticks," 
as one has expressively denominated those set 
and often-repeated discourses framed to gTatify 
the palates of the fastidious. Nor had he ever 
occasion, like an itinerant of whom he once 
heard, to regret that he was removed to a new 
circuit at the end of the first year, since he had 
in reserve forty of his best sermons " for the 
emergencies of the second ! Nor is he sensible 
of having endeavored to graduate his pulpit ef- 
forts to the size of his audiences. This com- 
mon failing, perhaps we ought to call it, of ex- 
temporaneous speakers, received a merited re- 
buke at the north a few years since. The anec- 
dote is worth relating. " How happens it," said 
an intelligent farmer to old brother B., "that 
you who preach so eloquently in our villages 
and on extra occasions, lay out none of your 
strength in oix* school-house appointments ?" 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



129 



**The experienced hunter adapts the load of his 
rifle to the size of his game ; a bear-charge for 
a bear, and a squirrel-charge for a squirrel," re- 
plied brother A few Aveeks after, the 
preacher came round again, and put up for the 
night at the same farm-house. ^' Have you fed 
my horse any oats, brother ?" said he to the pro- 
prietor of the establishment. I have fed him 
a gill," said the yeoman with the utmost non- 
chalance. " A gill !" cried the astonished 
preacher, " what do you mean ?" "A bear- 
charge for a bear, and a squirrel-charge for a 
squirrel !" retorted the imperturbable Scotch- 
man ; " I only imitate the example of a preacher 
who regulates his efforts for the salvation of 
men by the size of his congregations rather than 
by a proper regard for the priceless value of the 
souls he professes to be striving to save !" 

We trespass upon the reader's indulgence 
with only one incident more in this connection. 
The youthful divine had just concluded a dis- 
course, in a country school-house, from the 
words, " Having washed their robes and made 
them white in the blood of the Lamb," when a 
gray -headed skeptic, thinking to perplex the 
unpracticed theologian, sarcastically inquired, 
" Pray, sir, can you tell me how blood can wash 
anything white ?" When vou will tell me," 
9 



130 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



retorted the novice, " how the purest and whitest 
sugar is clarified by blood." The foiled infidel 
was confounded, if not convinced, by this reply, 
certainly not more sophistical than the inquiry 
which elicited it, and the successful replier se- 
cretly rejoiced that his ready inventive powers 
promptly supplied the lack of knowledge, ex- 
tricated him from difficulty, and covered the 
adversary of truth w4th confusion. 

In Februar}^, 1834, Mr. Ryder returned to 
his father-in-law's, in Granville, to recruit. His 
friends were astonished at his altered appear- 
ance : he was unable to stand or walk : pale, 
trembling, emaciated, eyes sunken, he was the 
image of death. He was immediately placed 
under the care of the family physician, and 
treated for neuralgic affections : he sunk gradu- 
ally for four months, and was given up to die. 
In July he abandoned medicines, and forthwith 
began to mend, rose from his bed and set out to 
visit his recent charge ; was prostrated at the 
house of brother William Perry in Leicester, 
and during the whole of September was as one 
hovering upon the confines of the realms of the 
king of terrors. Several of the preachers called 
upon him on their way to the Plattsburgh Con- 
ference, and through them he obtained the su- 
perannuated relation. Death was again disap- 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



131 



pointed of his prey : the invalid recovered, and 
after a sojourn of some weeks with his brother- 
in-law in Hampton, he returned to Granville. 
At the commencement of the following year, 
1835, he was so much improved that he began 
to cast about him for some means of livelihood, 
and after due deliberation decided on keeping a 
boarding-house. For this purpose he removed, 
on the 25th of February, to West Poultney, Vt., 
where the extensive and flourishing iron foundry 
of Henry Stanley, Esq., and the recently-lo- 
cated academy of the Troy Conference, now 
coming into successful operation, seemed to 
offer a favorable opening for the prosecution of 
his plans. In the beginning of April all his 
difficulties returned anew : there was great pain 
in the right shoulder, the muscles contracted 
and drew the arm around upon the back, so as 
to give it the appearance of dislocation. No 
suff*erer upon the rack or wheel ever endured 
anguish so exquisite or agonies so terrible ! In 
the same month of the following year, 1836, the 
left arm exhibited the same symptoms, and 
manifested the same tendencies. To prevent 
its utter dislocation, Mrs. Ryder bound it fast by 
a leathern thong to the footpost of the bed, 
forcing it to preserve its horizontal position : 
and thus the muscles drawing one way and the 



132 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



thong the other, had well nigh ended the victim 
of their cruel contention. To this torturing pre- 
caution he was doubtless indebted for the use 
of this arm for a considerable time after the 
other had become totally helpless. Near this 
time he was ^dsited by the president of the Ver- 
mont Academy of Medicine . " Your complaint," 
said the learned M. D., "is spinal rheumatal- 
gia." "Can you cure it V said the invalid, 
" As easily as the itch,'' said the doctor. He 
left medicines, and the prescriptions were faith- 
fully followed : the patient went into convul- 
sions, and the neighbors gathered to witness 
his immediate dissolution. The doctor was 
astonished ; altered his prescriptions : similar 
effects followed, and he resigned the case in 
despair. The patient got better, and on a fine 
morning in September, at the instant that his 
father and mother appeared in one direction, 
and a brother and sister in another, come from 
a distance to see him die, three men were 
placing him upon a bed in an easy wagon for a 
journey to Granville, and although he had four 
turns of cramping, with convulsions, by the 
way, every one of which it seemed must be 
his last, he reached in safety the place of his 
destination. 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



133 



CHAPTER X. 

Doctor, we will call the preachers together, and their 
voice shall be to me the voice of God. 

AsBURY TO Coke. 

Look on me ! there is an order 
Of mortals on the earth who do become 
Old in their youth, and die ere middle age, 
Without the violence of warlike death : 
Some perishing of pleasure — some of study — 
Some worn with toil — some of mere weariness^ — 
Some of disease — 

Manfred. 

Mr. Ryder's mental agony was even greater 
than his physical. He was disposed to regard 
the heavy afflictions with which he had been 
overtaken as certain indications that he was 
never called to the work of the ministry ; and 
at times he was led to doubt whether he had 
ever been converted. Exquisite as was his an- 
guish of mind under these severe temptations, 
he resolved to test his call by the two most 
common, and certain evidences, from which, in 
the absence, by reason of doubt, of the direct 
spiritual assurance, it may be inferred — the fruits 
of his labors and the voice of the church. He 
determined that this war of feeling should cease 
if he could learn that any had been converted 



134 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



under his ministrations, and if his brethren in 
the church and ministry approved the steps he 
had taken to be invested with the sacred office. 
By the providence of God his skepticism upon 
this subject was destined to a speedy removal ; 
for at the Granville camp-meeting, which he at- 
tended "lying upon a bed," like the paralytic 
of yore, he found that no less than four preach- 
ers of the Troy Conference traced their conver- 
sion, union with the church, and call to the great 
work of heralding salvation, to his humble in- 
strumentality ! This camp-meeting immediately 
preceded the Pawlet Conference, and our de- 
sponding itinerant embraced the opportunity af- 
forded by this general gathering to call together 
a number of preachers at the house of brother 
Nelson, and lay open before them his whole 
heart : he told them he had evidently never 
been called to preach ; he had thrust himself 
into a calling for which God had not designed 
him ; he had wronged himself, the church of 
God, and his ministering brethren ; he begged 
them to take away his credentials, to blot his 
name from the conference and church records, 
and to permit him to sink into that oblivion to 
which the finger of destiny evidently pointed. 
" You will do God service, my dear brethren,", 
continued he, " if you will expel me from your 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



135 



connection ; or at least permit me to retire, and 
purge your memories of my unworthy name !" 
Indelibly, as with a pen of iron upon tablets of 
brass, are the consoling advice and sympathetic 
expressions of these experienced men of God 
graven upon the heart of their suffering junior. 
" Perhaps," said brother Caughey, " the Lord 
had some hedge in his field which he deter- 
mined should be cleared up by your hand ; you 
have accomplished the work assigned you, and 
now he calls you from active labor." "He," 
said the eloquent Levings, in tones whose sil- 
very playfulness linger upon our invalid's recol- 
lection to this hour, " he who has infused these 
temptations into your soul is not in remarkably 
good repute for truth ; should he venture similar 
suggestions, gently hint to him that he is ' cz liar, 
and the father of it!'" "God's ways," said 
father Bates, in a sepulchral voice, admirably 
adapted to his solemn sentiments, " are a great 
deep ! trust in him though he slay you ! Afflic- 
tions are not in themselves an evidence that 
God has not called you to preach." " If they 
were," continued brother Pegg, " in what man- 
ner shall we account for that dispensation of 
Providence by which eight ministers, returning 
to their respective labors from the British Con- 
ference, were hurled down a precipice and all 



136 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



mstantiy killed !" " Where will yon leap said 
brother Spicer, in allusion to the anecdote by 
which Mr. Ryder had once saved a member to 
that branch of the church from which he was 
now anxious to dissever himself. But no words 
of consolation made a deeper impression upon 
his mind than those of the presiding bishop, 
Rev. Beverly Waugh. Mr. Ryder had been 
carried to the church in an easy chair and 
placed near the altar : before ascending the 
pulpit to conmience the sacred services of the 
day, the bishop, like a true son and successor 
of the benevolent apostles, bent over this afflict- 
ed member of his extensive diocese, and, with 
moistened eyes and a voice tremulous with 
emotion, said, " Brother, thou art in affliction ; 
remember that afflictions spring not from the 
dust, ' neither doth trouble spring out of the 
ground ;' ' what I do, thou knowest not now 
' cast not away therefore your confidence, which 
hath great recompense of reward.' " Filled 
with unspeakable comfort by these demonstra- 
tions of sympathy on the part of his brethren, 
Mr. Ryder further consulted them upon the ex- 
pediency of his receiving, in his present state, 
his ordination as elder, to which order he had 
been elected by the conference of the preceding 
year. The probability that his investment with 



THE SUPERAXXUATE. 



137 



the office would be attended by no practical 
utilm^ and the fear of embarrassing the solem- 
nities of the occasion, induced him to waive the 
desire, and his subsequent histor\^ has demon- 
strated that the course was not ill-judged. He 
returned home in better spirits. A brief sojourn 
at Saratoga Springs was attended with no per- 
manently-beneficial effects : the fall was con- 
sumed in visits to friends, and the tedium of 
winter whiled away between books and the 
braiding of whiplashes, an occupation which 
afforded recreation and profit to many of his 
juvenile days. In the summer of the succeed- 
ing year, he resolved, since medicine had failed, 
to try joumepng, and in a single wagon, by 
easy stages, anived at Peru, on the western 
shore of Champlain, where reposed the re- 
mains of his honored father. On his return he 
paused at ]yliddlebur}', and attended an interest- 
ing college commencement. The exhibition 
was hisfhly creditable to the institution, as well 
as to the young men immediately engaged. It 
was concluded by one who appeared to have 
risen from his death-bed to address the con- 
vened multitude : his performance was bril- 
liant : at its close he was borne from the stage 
by two of his companions, and in a few 
weeks was carried to the place of graves ! 



138 



THE SUPERAXXUATE. 



He proved to be one of that class of preco- 
cious geniuses, 

Just sho^^TL on earth, then suatch'd away," 

and reminded ]\Ir. Ryder of his early, only bo- 
som friend. Of how many Polloks, Keats, and 
Whites may it be said, — 

'Twas thine own genius gave the fatal blow, 
And help'd to plant the w^ouud that laid thee low !" 

The fatigue and excitement of this public oc- 
casion were too much for our invalid, and- he 
paid the penalty with a confinement of several 
weeks at the dwellings of brothers Fraser and 
Parker. He was prostrated a second time at 
the house of brother Richardson Olin in Salis- 
bmy. At each of these places he received every 
attention that benevolence and Christian kind- 
ness could suggest. In the fall following, he 
attended a camp-meeting in Orwell. So much 
better did he appear, and so vigorous did he 
feel, that he pelded to the earnest entreaties of 
his former parishioners, and preached to them 
from the pulpit on the sabbath after the grove- 
meeting. Exercise brought on violent perspi- 
ration, and when he left the house the north 
wind, which had succeeded to the mild breeze 
of the morning, blew fresh and moist from the 
lake : he was instantly chilled ; and an imme- 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



139 



diate and violent attack of all his old complaints 
was the necessary consequence of this impru- 
dent measure. His muscles contracted ; again 
he could neither walk nor stand : he was imme- 
diately removed to his brother-in-law's in Poult- 
ney, and soon after for ever deprived of the 
power of locomotion. Since then he has been 
a permanent, or rather a necessary resident of 
this romantic village. 

To the victim of spinal affections an erect 
posture is of all others the most painful ; and 
protracted recumbency, besides its agonizing 
tediousness, brings with it chafing of the skin 
and callousness of aU the parts in contact with 
the couch ; and after a few months' experiment, 
so far from being reconciled to his situation by 
habit, our patient was ready to die of the mere 
fatigue and distress occasioned by lying con- 
stantly in bed. By an article in the Penny 
Magazine, his attention was directed to Amott's 
hydrostatic bed, and the benevolence of his 
friends, and his own inventive powers were 
•forthwith put in requisition for the construction 
of a water-tight box six feet long and three 
wide, by sixteen inches deep, lined with zinc 
and filled with water. Across the top a sheet 
of India-rubber cloth was loosely drawn, upon 
this was spread a common matress, the usual 



140 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



bedding, and our patient. His stiffened limbs 
sunk gently into the yielding fluid, which kindly 
adapted itself to all his angulosities, while its 
coolness was refreshing to his fevered system. 
To this contrivance he was indebted, not only 
for temporary comfort, but also for an actual 
protraction of life ; his general health began to 
improve, and although the prevailing disease 
asserted its dominion over the joints and limbs, 
the vital action remained unimpaired. In nine 
months the cloth began to wear, his lower ex- 
tremities contracted and became rigid ; he could 
no longer be raised up without excruciating 
agony : a new contrivance suggested itself to 
his invention, the benevolence of the community 
caused the design to be executed, and the life 
of the invalid was a second time protracted, 
when it seemed that a few weeks would termi- 
nate his sufferings. A large easy chair was 
constructed, furnished with joints, so as to adapt 
itself to the crooked shapes into which disease 
had wrenched his system ; this was balanced 
upon on axle at the junction of the seat and 
back, so that the occupant could be placed at 
pleasure in a sitting or recumbent posture, and 
the whole was mounted upon rollers for the 
convenience of locomotion. To this couch the 
invalid is as immovably attached as is the In- 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



141 



dian faquir to the pedestal on which he suffers 
a self-imposed and lingering immolation. By 
the aid of wheels and easy springs he has been 
brought from hospital incarceration once more 
to breathe the air of heaven and witness the 
doings of the active world. Within the last two 
years, by the kindly aid of the gentlemen students 
of the academy, he has visited old friends, attend- 
ed the ordinary rostrum exercises of the institu- 
tion, its public exhibitions, and the services of 
the holy sanctuary. On the 4th of July, 1843, 
he was wheeled to the beautiful grove north of 
the seminary, and participated in an appropriate 
celebration of the day by the sabbath scholars 
of all denominations. It was a delightful rural 
gathering ; the " stars and stripes " waved grace- 
fully from the lofty spires ; gay processions dis- 
played their banners and mottos ; happy mul- 
titudes listened to eloquent speeches from the 
respective clergymen of the place, participated 
in the collation, and drank the usual toasts in 
J^rimming bumpers of pure " cold water." In 
August he attended the camp-meeting at East 
Whitehall. A tent was provided for his sepa- 
rate accommodation, and he had the delight of 
shaking hands in his heart" with many an old 
acquaintance, as well as the opportunity of so- 
cial and religious converse with numbers whom 



142 THE SUPERANNtJATfi* 

he had never expected to meet on this sid^ 
heaven. 

Our tale is told ; three acts of the simple 
drama are completed ; a brief career of sin, the 
hopes and fears of a first experience in religion, 
the pleasures and labors of an humble career 
as a minister of God ; the fourth act is in pro- 
gress, and is full of the tragic, pain by day and 
vreariness by night ; the fifth is in prospect, its 
scenes are a vrelcome death, triumph in the 
day of judgment, a happy reunion of a blood- 
washed soul v^ith a renovated and glorified 
body, and the bliss of heaven. Mr. Ryder is 
drawn out of shape by disease ; his limbs have 
gradually refused to do their office, and every 
joint in his system is as set as if it had never 
moved ; yet, as he looks upon his shapeless 
members, he cannot but reflect upon the changes 
that shall be wrought when " this mortal shall 
have put on immortality," and " death is swal- 
lowed up in victory," and the triumphant con- 
clusion of the apostle often and involuntarily^ 
escapes his lips — 

" O death ! where is thy sting? 
O grave ! where is thy victory?" 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



143 



CHAPTER XL 

This is the way physicians mend, or* end us, 
Secundum axtem — 

" Prithee send me another prescription, for I am as 
lame and as much tortiu^ed in all my joints as if I was 
broke upon the wheel. "—Mat. Bramble. 

Eighteen 43enturies ago, a celebrated M. D. 
reported the singularly-desperate case of one 
" which had spent all her li\dng upon physi- 
cians, neither could be healed of any," and we 
venture the presumption that the same hopeless 
record might be made of several cases that have 
puzzled the wits and faulted the ingenuity of 
the Esculapian fraternity since the days of the 
beloved physician." It will be readily antici- 
pated that the dismal tale is true, in part, of the 
subject of these sterile pages. " Living" the 
homeless and penniless itinerant had none to 
bestow, yet his pertinacious maladies have 
baffled the prescriptions and professional skill 
of nearly twoscore of the disciples of Galen 
and Hippocrates, of every imaginable grade of 
knowledge and experience. The empiric and 
the sangrado, the hard-riding practitioner and 
the learned and voluble signer of parchments, 
gracing the lecture room and the professor's 



144 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



chair, have found themselves alike at fault; and 
their varying and even antipodal opinions with 
regard to the name and character of his ailment 
have often evoked from the sufferer the doleful 
and reproachful plaint of the old beldam in Peter 
Prim, " Who shall decide, when doctors dis- 
agree ?" 

The history of Mr. Ryder's disease has been 
given in the preceding pages ; in compliance, 
however, with the suggestions of several intelli- 
gent and prominent members of the faculty, we 
propose to give a more particular account, mi- 
nuted from the patient's own lips, of its mani- 
festations in various stages of its progress. Its 
first appearance was preceded by a series of 
heavy colds, and the constant exposure of its 
subject, thinly clad, to the winds and snows of 
a mountainous district during a winter of unu- 
sual severity. His labors were arduous, his 
poverty pinching, and he was even destitute of 
an overcoat, an indispensable article in these 
Alpine regions, until late in the season, when a 
company of youthful merry-makers, perhaps de- 
sirous of compounding with conscience for in- 
dulgence in enjoyments of questionable moral 
tendency, took up a generous collection in a 
ball-room, to procure "the minister" a cloak! 

A hard sabbath-day's labor, and a long ride 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 145 

on horseback, in a damp, heavy snow-storm, 
were, one year later, the precursors of a second 
appearance of those excruciating pains, that 
thenceforth entrenched themselves in the hips, 
and gradually extended their conquests until 
every part of the system, except the strongholds 
of life, acknowledged submission to their terri- 
ble sway. Severe as were these tortures, there 
were not, at this period, any outward signs of 
their existence ; there was no swelling, no ex- 
ternal inflammation ; but in the difficult process 
of lying down or rising up, " the joints," to use 
the invalid's own language, would crack and 
snap as if breaking." In a few weeks the af- 
fection passed, sympathetically, to the stomach 
and lungs, respiration became difficult, expecto- 
ration constant, attended with various symptoms 
of consumption. At a later period, the spine 
curved, the knees and hips bent, the neck stif- 
fened, and an erect posture was no longer pos- 
sible. Each of these localities was the seat of 
heavy throbbings and of pains, shooting, zig-zag, 
and radiating. The arms and shoulders next 
became victims, and the sensations were those 
of the criminal upon the rack when strong cords 
are cutting the flesh and rending every limb 
from its socket ; one arm was actually dislo- 
cated, and the other prevented only by a cruel 
10 



146 



THE SUPERANNUATE, 



counteracting force from sharing the fate of its 
fellow. The hips were " filled with daggers," 
and transient, fugitive pains and aches pursued 
each other across the breast and over the neck 
and arms, like the restless lightnings of a sum- 
mer evening horizon. At times it seemed that 
a strong cord was twisted about his waist, above 
which the pains were darting and incessant, 
while below there was a sense of excessive full- 
ness, hard throbbings, and dull, heavy aches, 
A year later, his spasms, previously occasional, 
became general, passed into settled cramp, and 
frequent and severe convulsions. These were 
followed by an oppressive sense of heat," as 
if the subject were stretched upon Guatimozin's 
bed of coals, or as if "ten thousand red-hot 
needles" were thrust into his flesh at once. It 
is impossible to conceive, far more to describe, 
by appropriate comparisons, the variety and 
virulence of the tortures he endured. Now, it 
seemed as if " a strong man was winging him 
limb from limb," and then as if a score of ma- 
lignant spirits silently fastened upon his pained 
extremities, and, at a concerted signal, tweaked 
every nerve and muscle with such violence as 
to extort from the sufferer a howl of anguish ; 
now, he was " pierced with a thousand spears," 
and now, the " barbs of a thousand hooks," con- 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



147 



nected with invisible weights, were inserted in 
his neck and scalp. In fine, the history of the 
last ten or twelve years of his life is a history 
of pains and aches, of cramps, convulsions, and 
spasms, of twingings and writhings, of shiver- 
ing agues and roasting fevers ; every limb is 
out of shape and rigid ; the skin is tense and 
excessively tender to the touch ; the joints are 
stiff, the places of the finger nails are supplied 
by calcareous deposits ; the feet are dropsical 
and frightfully swelled, and every part is so 
sensitive to meteorological changes, that his 
feelings predict variations in the weather with 
scarcely less certainty and precision than the 
mercurial barometer. As the atmospherical 
pressure decreases in the change from fair wea- 
ther to foul, the vessels in the vicinity of the 
principal joints seem ready to burst asunder, 
and there is an indescribable sensation of " draw- 
ing apart but during the changes from foul to 
fair, when the air assumes its accustomed den- 
sity, every limb suffers the torture of compres- 
sion in a vice. If the affection was rheumatic 
in the outset, it became neuralgic in its progress, 
and probably there is not a single vertebra in 
the spinal column but has, in its turn, felt "like 
a spike driven into the flesh," and left to rankle 
there. At times, his brain has been shivered, 



148 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



and his senses scattered, and he has given heed 
to nothing but his sufferings. Within the last 
three years, however, though his pains are con- 
stant and often severe, they have so far abated 
their primitive violence as to allow him once 
more to converse, read, and enjoy. The dis- 
ease appears to have expended its force, to have 
done its utmost, and to have left its maimed and 
crippled victim to be borne off the stage of life 
by some one of its fellow-panders to the appe- 
tite of insatiable death. The malignant spirits 
of Faust, the tormentors of the wretched Cali- 
ban, the tortures of the rack and fagot of the 
terrible inquisition, the self-inflicted miseries of 
eastern devotees, and the horrible cruelties of 
our own aborigines toward their miserable cap- 
tives, were " light afflictions " compared with 
the agonies that have assaulted the subject of 
this brief narrative. They have strained the 
muscles, cramped the hands, distorted the eyes, 
palsied the tongue, and concentred in the 
quivering and shrinking members the virulence 
and malignity of the whole fraternity of death's 
destroying agents. 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



149 



CHAPTER XII. 

Hypolito, If thou couldst do it, 

Wouldst thou he down to sleep and wake 
no more ? 

Victorian. Indeed would I — as quietly as a child — 
As willingly as the tired artisan 
Lays by his tools and stretches him to sleep. 
Longfellow's Spanish Student, 

Preciosa. I desei've no thanks : — 
Thank Heaven, not me. 
Angelica. Both Heaven and you. The same. 

"Thy will be done," is a beautiful petition. 
It implies intelligent submission to the divine 
will, and implicit confidence in the divine protec- 
tion. It imbodies several of those elementarv^ 
principles that go to prove the excellence and 
heavenly origin of Christianity, and that confer 
upon it inconceivable pre-eminence over every 
other system of ethics and religion. The infi- 
del knows no will, confides in no aid superior 
to his own : the heathen bows in silent and 
sullen submission to an irresistible and undis- 
criminating fate, or seeks to conciliate a multi- 
[ tude of wills as capricious and antagonistic as 
those of his own wayward and fantastic species : 
the Christian alone, rescued, by grace, from 
weakness on the one hand, and insensibility on 



150 



THE SUPERANNUATE, 



the Other, finds the true exahation of his nature 
in the complete coincidence of his will with 
that of his all-intelligent heavenly Father. With 
the Christian, no less than with the ancient pa- 
gan, fortitude is a cardinal virtue: yet how dif- 
ferent the sustaining principles ! Reliance on a 
higher power is the soul of courageous endu- 
rance in the one, habitual insensibilit}' and the 
uniform suppression of the s}"mpathies is the 
secret of sufferance in the other. Yet real forti- 
tude, whether stoical or Christian, is a rare vir- 
tue. The mass of men yield themselves unre- 
sistingly to the instinctive impulses and first 
teachings of natm-e, and \\Tithe and howl like 
the brute creation, in the grasp of agony. How 
many of their attractions do romance and poetry 
borrow from the arena of suffering! Spartan 
fortitude, Indian apathy, and Faquir endurance 
figure well in single instances ; but who looks 
to these for true exhibitions of human nature ! 
Where were the interest of a shipwTeck with- 
out shrieks, or of a battle-field without groans ! 
Men are doubtless the best philosophers when 
danger and suffering are at the greatest dis- 
tance. It is easy to say, in poetic numbers, 

" O man may bear with suffering, his heart 
Is a strong thing, and godlike in the grasp 
Of pain that wrings moi-tahty!" 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



151 



It is harder to grapple with the iron-handed de- 
stroyers of our happiness and lives. Stoicism 
is unnatural ; God is not its author : its parent 
is pride, and its nurse enthusiasm. Polyphe- 
mus, groaning and frantic at the destruction of 
his solitary visual organ, is vastly more human 
than the Mohawk, consenting, without a single 
symptom of emotion, to have both eyes plucked 
from their sockets, and the bleeding cavities 
filled with burning embers. All men cannot 
be stoics, but ail men may be Christians. Many 
may admire, but few can imitate the darkly- 
frowning figures dimly seen through the mists 
of twenty centuries, gliding sternly about the 
precincts of the magnificent " Porch." A few 
may rouse the loftier energies of the will and 
intellect, subdue the passions, and find the per- 
fection of wisdom in the perfection of apathy ; 
the miserable many must abandon themselves 
to uncontrolled anguish and cowering despair, 
or seek sustenance for their native capabilities 
in the powerful aids of religious faith. In the 
last of these alternatives the subject of our narra- 
tive has sought refuge from his mental and physi- 
cal distresses. So intense and unremitted were 
these, in the earlier part of his sickness, that 
they were not, it must be confessed, always borne 
with Christian, far less with stoical, fortitude. 



152 



THE SUPER ANNUATK, 



Unsuccessful as he may hare been, it has never- 
theless been bis endeavor to preserve a spirit 
of prayer ; to rely momently upon God by faith ; 
and to kiss the rod of the powerful Chastener. 

To be, by grace, reconciled to die, is issually 
deemed the height of Christian resignation: 
Mr. Ryder has found it infinitely more difficult 
to be reconciled to live. For years he has been 
praying for death ; indeed he has been often in 
the confines of its chilly domain, has stood un- 
awed within the shadowy portals of the gravCy 
and peered without terror into its deepening 
gloom ! Why should he live ? Why should his 
existence be thus porolonget^ in the midst of suf- 
fering ? His activity and usefuhiess^ aj^penr to 
alike at an end ; he appears to himself to have 
become a burden to society and his friends. 
Why should the great lights of the church be 
extinguished, and the feeble taper be left to 
flicker in the socket ? Why should we deplore 
the loss of the eloquent preacher, the devoted 
missionary, and the ardent promoter of science, 
while the disease-stricken superannuate, to 
whom there is no longer the slightest prospect 
of benefiting the church, is permitted to linger 
within its militant pale ? Often have these ques- 
tions revolved in the mind or escaped from the 
lips of our sufTering brother ; and just so often 



THE SUPERAXXL'ATE. 



153 



has reason suggested that Providence was sub- 
serving its o^vn gracious designs in thus pro- 
tracting his existence in the midst of distress 
and anguish. Often has reason pointed out the 
personal and social benefits arising from such 
an apparently unpropitious order of events, but 
grace alone has produced acquiescence in the 
dispensations of Infinite Benevolence. His 
powers of action have been taken away, but he 
humbly trusts he has been made willing to suffer 
for the glor}^ of God. Nor has he preached 
less efficiently from the couch than he did, or 
perhaps ever could have done, from the pulpit. 
His acute and prolonged sufferings have been 
a sermon which scores have heeded, and the 
language has been such as the rostrum could 
never employ. It has taught the danger of sin- 
ning against the physical constitution ; it has 
proved to the robust and vigorous the necessity 
of preparation, in the season of heahh, for sud- 
den and unexpected ills ; it has taught the vahie 
of religion by actual test of its Avorth upon a 
couch of thorns and anguish ; it has inculcated 
with power and efficiency the two cardinal vir- 
tues of the social state, sympathy and benevo- 
lence. " It is," says the elegant Montgomer}*-,* 
" an affecting consideration, that more than half 

* Lectures on General Literature, p. 193. 



154 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



the interest of human life arises out of the suf- 
ferings of our fellow-creatures. The mind is 
not satisfied alone with the calm of intellectual 
enjoyments, nor the heart with tender and pas- 
sionate emotions, nor the senses themselves 
with voluptuous indulgence. The mind must 
be occasionally aroused by powerful and mys- 
terious events, in which the ways of Providence 
are so hidden, that the wisdom and goodness 
of God are liable to be questioned by ignorance 
or presumption, while faith and patience must 
be silent and adore : the heart must sometimes 
be probed by sympathies so rending, that they 
only fall short of the actual agony to which they 
are allied." To this mournful species of inte- 
rest and gratification our afflicted itinerant has 
contributed his full share. His case has elicited 
the most extensive sympathy among his friends, 
in the scenes of his former ministerial labors, 
and throughout the conference of his affection 
and choice. Nor have these sympathies vented 
themselves in expressions alone. Poverty was 
superadded to sickness, and this has afforded 
ample scope for benevolence. The necessities 
imposed by severe disease and utter helpless- 
ness have been constant and imperative, and 
besides the pittance allowed to superannuates by 
the conference, he has been thrown mainly upon 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



155 



the charities of the public for daily sustenance, 
and nobly has the Christian public responded 
to the call. His old parishioners have by no 
means forgotten their former pastor. Seldom 
do any of them come to Poultney without giving 
him a call, and seldom do they call without 
leaving some substantial proof, from the granary 
or dairy, the poultry-yard or apiary, of their for- 
mer affection and continued remembrance. The 
inhabitants of Poultney have been unboundedly 
kind to the stranger, thrown by accident, as it 
were, into their midst. The various arrange- 
ments for the convenience and comfort of the 
invalid were the gift of the citizens and stu- 
dents, and the means for several weeks' sojourn 
at Saratoga Springs, at the house of the bene- 
volent brother J. D. Moriarty, flowed from the 
same beneficent source. At the Whitehall 
camp-meeting, the brethren remembered " the 
needy and on the 4th of July, a year since, 
near the conclusion of a most interesting tem- 
perance and sabbath- school celebration, in the 
beautiful maple grove north of the seminary, at 
the instance of the president of the day, Rev. 
J. T. Peck, a liberal collection was taken up 
for his benefit. Through the active kindness 
of Rev. N. Bigelow and lady, of the New-York 
Conference, a handsome donation of books was 



156 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 



forwarded to him. " contributed, in part," says 
our invalid, by the three royal Georges "— 
not Georges royal — now holding conspicuous 
places in the General Book Concern. To the 
preachers of the Troy Conference, their afflict- 
ed fellow-laborer may be allowed to express his 
gratitude for their strong sympathy and active 
benevolence ; and if the thanks of one so ob- 
scure were a worthy return for kindness from 
an elevated source, he would render them to the 
second of the senior bishops, not only for his 
recent call, words of consolation, and " effectual 
prayer," but for his kindness on a former occa- 
sion, an occasion that has doubtless long since 
faded from the mind laboriously occupied with 
the daily " care of all the churches," but which 
has left an indelible trace upon the memory of its 
humble object. He was brought to the door of 
want : the last penny had been frugally expend- 
ed, and whence the next was to come human 
probability afforded no means of predicting. 
Like the sanguine Heinrich Stilling, he betook 
himself to prayer, and the earnestness of sup- 
plication had scarcely subsided into the calm 
confidence of submission, when the messenger 
of benevolence entered his dwelling. " Here," 
said brother Frazer, are ten dollars, a special 
donation, deposited with Bishop Hedding, to be 



THE SUPERANNUATE, 



157 



given, at his discretion, to the most necessi- 
tous case in the Troy Conference." " Give it," 
said the venerable patriarch of more than a 
miihon of God's mihtant host, " to our afflicted 
brother Ryder and never was gift more oppor- 
tune : it rescued its object from absolute want. 

It is needless to dwell longer upon the de- 
monstrations of sympathy and benevolence that 
have attended our superannuate at every step 
of his career in physical suffering : suffice it to 
say, that to have been the means of provoking 
ia others so much compassion, so many exhibi- 
tions of sterling kindness and genuine benefi- 
cence, were enough of itself to sweeten the 
bitterest cup, to render the severest pangs en- 
durable, nay, even almost reconcile one to an 
entire life of misery and wretchedness. Scores 
of names might be enumerated, which, although 
they may now be obscure or forgotten, will 
shine forth with conspicuous lustre in the day 
when the commissioned angel shall miroll the 
records of time, dash out with the pen of infa- 
my many an action that the world calls great, 
and gild with heaven's eternal brightness the 
hitherto unnoted deeds of unobtrusive benevo- 
lence. 

Mysterious as are the ways of Heaven, the 
final causes of many of its dispensations are 



158 



THE srPERANXUATE. 



siifliciently apparent ; and if they were not, 
man might not fault its high behests. Severe 
as have been the sufferings of 'Mr. Ryder, his 
has not been an unmingled cup : dark as his 
prospects may at times have been, his has not 
been a moonless, rayless night : threatenino- as 
were the first blasts of adversity, they were not 
the heralds of interimnable winter. He is not 
entirely cut off from the delights of life. Health- 
ful intervals allow him a nearly uninterrupted 
participation in all the social, intellectual, and 
religious enjoyments consistent with his crippled 
and restricted contoion. He is especially grate- 
ful for the restoration of the power to converse 
with the world through the medium of books. 
A book-frame is suspended before his face ; 
there is yet sufficient strength in the thumb and 
finger of one of his hands, which lie immovable 
in his lap, to wield a slender stick, bv means 
of which he turns over and conlines a leaf long 
enough for its pemsal ; in this toilsome way he 
has read thousands of pages within the last 
three years. The Bible, Clarke, Wesley, Ban- 
croft's United States, Stone's Brandt. Cooper's 
Naval History, Alison's Europe, with a multi- 
tude of inferior works, have been successively 
perused. He is thankful for his location. The 
inhabitants are kind : the school of the Troy 



THE SUPERANNUATE. 159 

Conference is here ; the preachers, and many 
others of its patrons, and numbers of the stu- 
dents, are his personal friends ; and the super- 
annuate is never forgotten at the semi-annual 
rallyings. He is thankful for the occasional 
privilege of breaking aw^ay from his protracted 
incarceration, to explore the streets of our little 
hill-imbosomed village, to look upon the clear, 
rapid-rushing mountain- stream that divides the 
empire state from the proud hills of Vermont, 
to gaze upon the gray spire of the old church 
in Hampton, pointing from its commanding ele- 
vation to that heaven whither have gone the 
faithful, whose "mortal" yet reposes in its 
evening shadow : to pay his respects now and 
then to the "East Village," lying in a snug val- 
ley at the very foot of the Blue Hills, with its 
white cottages and spires, and its grateful recol- 
lections of those who have risen to distinction 
from its poetic soil — the able editor of the 
Tribune, and the distinguished author of Ameri- 
can Biography. 

He is thankful for the hopes of a " better 
resurrection." While he gazes upon the wreck 
of his former self, his soul exults in the belief 
that the decaying system will one day be reno- 
vated and fitted for an eternal residence at the 
right hand of God, 



160 



THE JjUPERAXNa'ATE. 



Posthumous biography has one advantage 
which that of a living subject can never pos- 
sess, a completeness, wliich leaves upon the 
reader's mind the same feeling of satisfaction 
with which he follows, to the last, the disposi- 
tion of the characters of a drama or romance. 
Our humble subject is still living, or rather dy- 
ing, and hours yet slumbering in unconscious 
existence in the dark future will be those that 
shall witness his ultimate struggles. Yet the 
final scene will come, and the simple substitu- 
tion of the past for the future tense will give 
to the history of our dying brother all the com- 
pleteness of that of the tenants of the tomb. 
The sob of parting angTiish, the solemn bell, the 
slow and mournful gathering to the house of 
God, the dirge, the prayer, the voice of weep- 
ing — the rustle of the "slow^ and measured 
tread " — the hea^y-falling clods — the simple 
tablet, or the unnoted, unremembered hillock 
— all these will soon be here. Then, if faith- 
ful to the end, will the distressed superannuate 
realize the fulfillment of the consolatory words 
breathed in his ear, at the moment of parting, 
after the recent conference, by the afiectionate 
and heavenly-minded Bishop Hamline, " God 

HAS AS BRIGHT CROWNS IN STORE FOR THOSE 
WHO SUFFER, AS FOR THOSE WHO DO HIS WILL !" 



,0 c 



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